


The Slowest Way to a Man's Heart

by butterandscotch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 2 PoV, Avengers Imagines, Chronic Illness, Domestic Avengers, Dreamsharing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Insomnia, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Reader Has Powers, Reader-Insert, Slow Build, also food, basically the i ran (so far away) scene from la la land but 60k, enhanced!reader, so much food, that's right i said avengers goddamn imagines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25959622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterandscotch/pseuds/butterandscotch
Summary: You hadn’t slept in three days, which might explain why you were hallucinating that a six-foot-something streak of silver and peroxide just drunkenly mugged you. Or hit on you? Both?How that event could have possibly led to you personally catering all of Pietro Maximoff’s dates as private chef to the Avengers is anyone’s guess.
Relationships: Pietro Maximoff/Original Female Character(s), Pietro Maximoff/Reader, Quicksilver/Reader, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 56
Kudos: 208





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't write this. You can't prove anything. 
> 
> (Sorry in advance for any inconsistencies with canon. Canon, timelines, ensemble cast, etc are treated very loosely because I’m just here for a good time. I tagged the fic for chronic illness because it heavily features a chronic illness analogue, but if you're looking for a fic where the reader has an actual diagnosis, I'm afraid this isn't it. 
> 
> Heads up, there’s a couple of Pietro POV scenes in the exposition, but the rest of the fic is/will be strictly 2 POV.)
> 
> [playlist for the fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5WdVHGwJ2gCMzKepv6xAz1?si=WQ0rIoMETOKVw0KtU9DxbQ)

The buzzing was like a chainsaw being held inches from his face. Pietro put a hand out in a bleary but earnest attempt to fend it off, whatever it was. Killer insect robot? Deadly sonic attack? Bone saw? These were all viable candidates when one was an Avenger.

Pietro groaned. He did not feel like an Avenger at the moment. He barely felt like a person. What the hell happened last night? Buzzzz buzzzzzz. And why did his body feel like it had been put through a paper shredder? Buzzzzzzzzzzz. And what was that amazing smell? 

Propping himself up on one elbow was a risky move; every little motion threatened to tip his nauseous stomach over like a canoe. When he made it upright—possibly the slowest he’d moved in four years; he hadn’t moved this carefully when he had gunshot wounds—he found that the source of the deafening buzzing was the gentle vibration of his phone.

Three unread emails. Six voicemails, and fifty-two unread texts—no, make that fifty-three. His screen lit up again. Fifty-five.

The most recent text on display read, _Hey valentine, this is Cami from last night_ 😘 _The answer to your question is yes_

Cami? Who the fuck was Cami? What question? (His drunken self better not have proposed to a stranger again.) Pietro’s eyes roved his bedroom for clues, reminded of the Sokovian subbed episodes of _Blue's Clues_ he used to watch as a teenager to improve his English.

Jogging suit in a heap by the bed. That was normal. No women’s clothing around it, so he probably didn’t hook up last night. Not to brag, but Pietro’s lovers usually stayed around for the next morning—Pietro wouldn’t be living up to his name if he hadn’t truly mastered the art of the morning after quickie. Sneakers by the door, bottoms totally burnt off.

“My favorite pair,” Pietro despaired, his thickly accented morning voice creaky and pitiful. 

What possessed him last night to make him run through his favorite Dunks? They were holographic, just a little—just the right amount. Barton made fun of him, but Pietro strongly felt they weren’t half so bad as most of the flashy pocket square bullshit Stark paraded around in. He saw the shoes in a storefront window display after relocating to New York and was halfway to stealing them before he realized he didn’t have to. They were the first thing he ever bought himself since starting his new life here. They were beautiful. And now they were gone. 

His eyes roamed further. Bouquet of roses. Or what used to be a bouquet of roses; the petals were almost totally gone, so it was really just a collection of thorny stems tied with a ribbon. He must have gone running with them. Ah, something he does remember. A pity bouquet. From Wanda. Ah yes, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Pietro could remember his sister’s heartfelt expression as she gave him the white roses and a hug, her AI boyfriend grinning peacefully behind her. She wanted her brother to feel the happiness she was feeling. She didn’t want him to feel lonely or left out that day. Her worries were totally unfounded, of course. Pietro had plenty of company, whether it was his brothers and sisters in arms living together in Avengers Tower or the brief but lovely company of a new female friend. He was quite good at making new female friends. He wasn’t ‘lonely.’

And he hadn’t been alone on Valentine’s Day. Pietro vaguely remembered sitting at a bar with Thor, whose lady love was out of the country. When had they left the bar, though? His Enhanced metabolism usually burned through alcohol like dry kindling. What the hell had they been drinking?

A dirty glass left on top of the wardrobe. An empty milk carton. Who drank a half gallon of milk last night? 

“The fuck?”

Pietro’s stomach gurgled in response. Because of course it was him. 

Concluding his 360 degree scan of the room, his eyes landed on a something near the foot of the bed. An open container of cookies. Not pre-packaged, convenience store cookies. Nice cookies, in nice tupperware—the fluted glass kind with a plastic lid. Pietro scented the air again. Ahhh there it was. That vanilla, that brown sugar, that hint of chocolate, that… rosemary? It was a large package, but only four cookies remained. Pietro’s stomach complained loudly again. Wanda did not give him cookies with his pity roses. He had no memory of them whatsoever. 

Clearly he hadn’t gone straight home after the bar last night. Where and why he _had_ gone remained to be seen. He concentrated, really concentrated, on summoning the memories back up from the black. 

He emptied his mind. He let the quiet and the stillness envelop him for as long as it took. Pietro dug deep and quietly meditated on the task to the utmost bounds of his patience.

After four whole seconds, he still had nothing.

As a last ditch effort, hoping sensory stimulation would jog his out-of-shape memory, Pietro reached for the cookies. Not too thick but soft with ripples on top. Freckled with tiny flecks of dark chocolate, kissed with flakes of sea salt. He was hungover as hell, but he would be lying if he said the smell wasn’t tempting. 

He put one in his mouth.

“Mother of god.” Who was responsible for this?

*

_12 hours earlier_

Your name was Bea Dorsey and you hadn’t slept in three days, which explained a lot of things: Why your face was sallow with purple rings beneath your eyes. Why your fingers trembled from your third coffee of the day—well, night. Why the lights studding the New York sidewalk seemed to keep pulsing brighter then dimmer. Why you were wearing your sweater inside out. Why you were hallucinating that a six-foot-something streak of silver and peroxide just mugged you. Or hit on you? Both?

It was a chilly Valentines Day. You thought you felt the February wind whipping at your back, but then the wind changed to blow against your face, doubling back and spinning around you like a Tasmanian devil.

“What is that smell?” slurred the wind. It was an Eastern European wind.

You slowly blinked your sleep-deprived, bloodshot eyes at the man suddenly in your space, hanging off your shoulder. But he had no intention of waiting for you to process his question. 

“Lovely,” the white-blond hallucination breathed as he took another whiff above the clear container in your hands. “ _Printsessa,_ you shouldn’t have, for me.” He leaned an affectionate weight onto your shoulders. The smell of alcohol perfumed the air.

In general, despite being small, you tended not to worry about street harassment since you were more than capable of incapacitating any unlucky schmuck fool enough to underestimate you just because you were unassuming. However, that tended to be a lot of paperwork and when you were this tired, you couldn’t be sure if this guy was even real, let alone a threat requiring you to use your abilities.

You squinted up, trying to focus your eyes and figure out whether this was real. He had awfully detailed stubble for a hallucination. Awfully sharp jaw, too—

“Ah, but of course I will be your valentine, my little freckled moth.” He squeezed your shoulders tight. What the fu— “You must be mine as well, of course,” he prattled on, so blitzed his eyes weren’t even open. What kind of drug was this crazy person on and had the American military weaponized it yet? 

“Here is my valentine for you, _draga mea._ Hold it by your heart and think of me always.” A piece of paper appeared before your eyes. His number. Gee, what a romantic.

“Are you on speed?” you managed to cut in between his rapidfire nonsense. 

Rather than taking offense, he pulled a face as if you’d said something adorable. His cold hands smushed your cheeks. “ _Mielul mea_ is so clever. Yes, _printsessa,_ I am forever on speed, as you say.”

Where were his gloves? It was 12 degrees out and he didn’t even have a coat on. Lightweight blue-grey underarmor was all that stood between his impressive torso and the elements. You blinked at his biceps. Another bullet point for the ‘hallucination’ column. Wait, were those… wings? Yeah, hallucination. Definitely a hallucination. 

A stray feather from said tacky costume wings landed on your nose as the junkie wagged a dismissive hand before you, shushing you though you weren’t saying anything. You’d barely had time to say anything, he was moving and chattering so quickly.

“No, you must not thank me. It is all in a day’s work for Cupid, _valentina.”_ He attempted a cocky leer, but the effect on his handsome face was spoiled by one of his eyelids drooping slightly lower than the other. Don’t do drugs, kids. “Spreading love and saving the world.” His mouth cutely warped the ‘w’ in ‘world.’ 

“I will be a faithful valentine, thinking only of yyy—” his head whipped around to track the progress of a leggy girl walking by who was as poorly dressed for the weather as he was, laminated in a bright violet sheath dress, “—yyyo, _printsessa!”_

And off he went, his fading voice already professing his love for the next valentine. “How fate has drawn us together today, ah, _frumoasa?”_ he called to her as he caught up. “Cupid comes for you!” 

He couldn’t have actually been that fast; he was just blurry because your brain was about to shut down from sleep deprivation. You blinked at the thin air the ripped guy had disappeared from, then blinked down.

Okay, you were pretty loopy-tired, but you were fairly sure you had a huge container of your best cookies—the ones that took twelve hours to make, the ones that all your hopes for a liveable week rested on—in your hands a few seconds ago. You stared hard at your empty gloved palms waiting for the cookies to reappear. 

What the shit.

*

“Question, Speedy: Did you happen to go out last night?”

Pietro groaned over his mug of coffee. He usually avoided caffeine, but this was a singular morning.

“Uh huh,” Stark nodded. “And when your hyperactive metabolism wouldn’t let you get wasted enough to deal with National Singles Awareness Day, did you drink Asgardian booze shot for shot with a literal god?”

Groan.

“And when you went out and made a lot of shiny new lady friends, did you happen to give your number out?”

Groan. Pietro was forced to turn his phone to silent this morning after the eighth voicemail came in—though it was flattering to know that even blackout drunk, his game was good enough to get some callbacks. ‘Still got it,’ he’d thought to himself. It was a little more disconcerting to find out that at some point in the wee hours of the morning, in a drunken burst of love and enthusiasm, he’d made plans with every girl who texted him. And the numbers were absurd.

“And when you ran out of cards, you didn’t happen to start giving out _mine_ instead, did you?”

Groan—actually, no that one’s still pretty funny in the morning. Pietro made an ambivalent hand gesture without looking up. Looking up meant sunlight in his eyes. 

Stark’s voice was becoming strained with annoyance. “My private number has been getting calls nonstop and if it doesn’t end soon I’m going to—”

Before Stark could catch Pietro smiling instead of apologizing, FRIDAY interrupted. “Call on your personal line from a Hoboken, NJ number. A Miss Charity Weekes. Should I put her through?”

Stark just scrubbed a hand over his face. “Exactly how many strippers did you give my personal card out to?”

“There is no way of knowing.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Sir?” FRIDAY interjected.

Tony sighed in the midst of refilling his mug, then paused with a tilted head before asking FRIDAY, “… Is she cute?”

*

It wasn’t in your coat pocket, your jean pocket, or your bag. You even checked inside the beanie you’d been wearing last night. Nothing. You were groggy still after waking up at 2 PM—you disliked taking sleeping pills, your body didn’t respond to them well, but the cookies were missing and sixty-two hours without sleep meant desperate measures—so you checked all these places twice just to be sure. 

That recipe card was possibly the most precious thing you’d ever gotten your hands on. The most secret of the secret family recipes. Aunt Silvie’s Twelve Hour Cookies. Your own mother didn’t even know the recipe, but after twenty-five years, your grandmother had finally entrusted it to you. 

Twelve hours was too long to wait for cookies and twenty-five years was too long to wait for a recipe, but if there were words you lived by, it would be that waiting for the right moment was _always_ worth it.

The cookies were indulgent, laborious, and utterly worth it. A rare treat throughout your childhood that seemed to dry all tears and cure all ills. It was a longshot that they would fix your insomnia when countless specialists, pills, herbal infusions, and an enterprising monk had all failed. But where was the harm in trying? You’d even boosted the odds in your favor a bit with a covert addition to your batch of cookies, just in case. Yes it was a longshot, but you hadn’t realized how heavily your hopes had been riding on it until the cookies had vanished. It felt like much more than twelve hours down the drain.

“You use less sugar because the wait makes them sweeter,” Nana always said. 

The two of you had spent the day making a bulk batch of them yesterday. Nana had walked you through each painstaking step of the twelve hour process, watching you sharply like a karate instructor as you tried to perfectly mimic her every move. She was passing down her art, her Great-Aunt Silvie’s art, and she took that very seriously. 

When Nana invited you over, she said she was impressed with your work as a private chef and the woman you’d become. Said she was proud of you for leaving that awful old job behind and moving forward. You didn’t point out that leaving ‘that awful old job’ hadn’t been a choice and you didn’t dwell on it, either. You were so pleased she was proud of you; the only bitterness on a day like that should be dark chocolate.

… And then you lost the recipe within an hour of receiving it. It was nowhere to be found. You’d been tearing the apartment apart all morning, but the only thing you found was the crummy phone number that hot weirdo had given you the night before. 

The _weirdo._

If that coked-out Cupid existed at all, then _he_ was the one who had spirited your cookies away into the night. Your cookies, your fancy glass container, and… the recipe cards you’d tucked under the wax paper inside the container. Not in your pocket or your bag like a sane person would have done, but in the pyrex dish where they would stay safe and flat.

The contact card leered up at you tauntingly. You didn’t even remember pocketing it, but it had been tucked into your jeans pocket when you picked them up from the floor this morning. You had a staring contest with the piece of paper on your bed. It won.

All you had to go on was the phone number, and no one was picking up. The voicemail box was full and you didn’t bother to text. As a rule, you avoided pulling strings from your previous job, but desperate times called for desperate measures. With every moment that passed, it became more and more likely that somewhere in Manhattan, your precious heirloom had just been dumped into a trashcan. All you needed was access to the cell tracking tech.

You unlocked your phone and dialed. “Dorsey here. Sorry to call out of the blue. I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot,” said Hill. 

*

At first you thought it had to be a system malfunction. Something wrong with the input. You needed to know the location of the cell phone, not the corporate headquarters of its manufacturer. It had to be a mistake, because why the hell would a crazy dye job be in Avengers Tower? Maybe they had him in custody after he creeped out one girl too many …or maybe he was one of the many insane people Tony Stark employed (let it be known here that Tony Stark is self-employed). 

Come to think of it, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Most of the people you’d met in Avengers Tower over the years were crazy dye jobs—loveable ones, but still. What was one more? For being so big, New York was way too small. In any case, the location would make your mission a lot easier. 

Easier aside from the fact that you had to schlep all the way to Midtown, via pricey Uber and not MTA since time was of the essence. You did the math in your head, trying to figure out how big of a dent this whole stupid cookie fiasco would put in your savings. How many weeks it might push back your still distant goal of moving out from the apartment you and your mother shared. Private chefs could bring in good money, but so could sleep disorder specialists. It broke even more often than you would have liked. Your sigh fogged up the cold glass of the cab window. Somehow you’d make it work.

It was unexpectedly nerve-wracking, standing in front of the revolving doors of Tony’s building. You hadn’t been inside Avengers Tower in over two years. The lobby was different—new marble—but the doorman at the desk was the same. It was a relief that ‘Beatrice Dorsey’ was still on his list, though you no longer worked or lived here. The doorman escorted you up to the tippy top of the tower, catching you up on the wife and kids during the elevator ride. 

“It’s good to have you back, Ms. Dorsey,” he said in parting as you stepped off the elevator alone. 

“Thanks, Bill,” you grinned. You didn’t say it was good to be back. You weren’t sure yet.

“Dorsey? Dorsey, is that you?”

A smile broke over your face as you entered the kitchen. “Bruce!” You were enveloped in a firm hug. “Wasn’t sure if you’d be here today.”

“The elusive Agent Dorsey returns,” he said with one of his lopsided grins. “What are you doing here? You just visiting?”

“It’s actually kind of a weird story. Speaking of weird, what are you doing here? It’s daylight hours, aren’t you normally locked up in the lab?”

Bruce pulled a face. “Tony’s being a problem child today. I thought I’d… give him space.”

“What’s going on with him? He wouldn’t respond to my texts.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose with the look of a longsuffering elder. “Yeah he’s having phone troubles. Problems in general with, uh, some new personnel.”

You laughed softly, careful not to aggravate the headache your sleeping pill hangover had gifted you. “Well there’s something new and different. Have they got anyone sane for you to play with?” When your time with S.H.I.E.L.D. had come to a close, you felt bad leaving Bruce here; it so often felt that you two were an island of reason amidst a crashing ocean of overdramatic crazy.

He snorted. “No. Well, actually,” he amended, “there’s Vision. You’ll like him if you meet him. Though I guess he’s proof that if you want sane company up here, you have to make it yourself.”

You’d heard about the Vision and the aftermath of the Ultron debacle, but knew very few of the details. Still, you knew enough to hope Vision would be around for you to meet in person. It was so strange to think that you would never speak to JARVIS again. You’d been friends. 

“And his girlfriend’s usually pretty reasonable, too, now that she’s not trying to kill us.”

“He has a villain girlfriend? Already? They grow up so fast.” 

Bruce raised his brows like he was just as amused as you were. “What, you didn’t know about her? Maximoff?”

“I’m not exactly reading Avengers tabloids.” You fiddled with your bag strap awkwardly. “I kind of avoid that sort of news. It’s, um. Hard to read about that stuff. Since leaving the job.” It was difficult to feel like your current work was meaningful when you held it up against past employment. You were making dinner rolls, not saving lives and protecting the free world.

“I guess I can understand that. Think I speak for the group when I say we miss seeing you around, though. Or just hearing from you.”

You bit your cheek. It might not have been your most mature move, but after your life came crashing down two years ago, putting as much space between you and your old life had helped you cope. You had unanswered texts on your phone that could have been featured on _Antiques Roadshow._

When you said nothing, Bruce coughed. “But I know it’s hard for you. So you never said what it was that brings you here. You look exhausted. Anything I can help with?”

“Maybe.” You glanced around. It didn’t look like Tony would be any help. “I tracked a cellphone to this building, but the guy I’m looking for could be on any floor. I thought Tony might be able to help me go through the residents and visitors dossier, but he isn’t picking up either.”

Bruce’s eyebrows go up. “Well you’re certainly bolder than the last time I saw you. Hell of a way to get a date.” You smacked his shoulder, but indulged his teasing.

“I’m trying to track down something I lost last night.”

“Your heart?” Bruce’s eyes twinkled with mirth, the dork. You were used to being teased at every turn by the team. Hell, that had practically been your main job. You… you missed it. 

You eyed Bruce appraisingly. “You’re in a good mood today.” This was practically chipper for Dr. Banner. Like the usual two-ton weight of self-loathing and restraint had been lifted off of him.

He shrugged and polished off the glass of milk he had sitting on the island counter. 

Milk. Wait a minute. You sniffed the air in front of his face and narrowed your eyes. With the utmost gravity, feeling like a pet owner, you demanded, “What have you been eating?”

Before Bruce could answer, footsteps echoed into the living room. You looked over and when he came around the corner, you were so shocked that you didn’t even manage to say anything. You just dropped your jaw and pointed. 

The guy with the white hair—apparently not a hallucination—stopped short and looked over his shoulder as though you must have been indicating someone else. He slowly pointed a finger at his own chest and quirked a single dark brow at you. 

“What? You don’t remember me?” you sassed him. You were typically more reserved with people you didn’t know, but your head was giving you hell for taking sleeping pills and you had to go all the way to Midtown today because of this asshole. _Midtown._

His blue eyes lit up from the entranceway. Why did he have to be so handsome? “Ah, so we met last night and you have come to see me.” 

In a blink, he was suddenly lounging comfortably with one hip against the island counter and a cocky grin spread across his face. So it was true that he was Enhanced and not just one of your insomnia-bred hallucinations. Interesting. But that wouldn’t save him from you if he’d lost your family heirloom on his bender last night. Up close, you could see that his eyes were still slightly bloodshot, but the perfectly imperfect sprawl of an errant tuft of blonde hair sweeping across his brow more than made up for it. This strange man’s presence was haphazard but artful and he damn well knew it. 

You puckered your mouth like you were sucking a lemon. 

“Wait, Dorsey,” Bruce was incredulous. “This is the guy you’re looking for? Maximoff?”

“How do you know the doctor?” the silver-haired guy frowned. His accent was much slighter now that he was sober, his English more practiced.

You answered Bruce instead of indulging the thief’s curiosity. “Yeah, he stole something of mine and I need it back.”

Bruce was outright laughing at him now, holding the bridge of his glasses. “I know you’ve got sticky hands, Maximoff, but you stole from Dorsey? Of all people, sweet little Dorsey? What the hell did you steal? Did you rob some grannies too?”

“I did not!” Maximoff squirmed, flustered. “I did not do any of it!” Was he lying or did he genuinely not remember?

“I don’t get it, Dorsey. Why didn’t you knock the punk out?”

You flushed, somewhat ashamed of that yourself. “I was too tired to be aware of what was going on. By the time I caught on, he was long gone.” You tipped your head in the Enhanced guy’s direction. “I’m guessing he’s new.”

“Eh,” Bruce hedged. “It’s been, what? Six months, Pietro?”

“She could not knock me out,” Pietro protested, offended, before hastily adding, “And she would not need to! I stole nothing!”

“You did what?” An unfamiliar girl came onto the scene. Her accent and personal style pegged her as a fellow Eastern European. 

“No-thing,” Pietro pronounced emphatically, baring his teeth. He started whining at the girl in his native language, using dramatic hand gestures almost too quickly to be perceived.

“Wanda,” Bruce muttered to you. “His sister.” His longsuffering sister, by the sound of it. 

“Piet, we talked about the stealing!” Wanda cried with the betrayed disapproval of a dog owner.

“I robbed no one!”

“You stole my recipe card!” you rebutted, too addled for delicacy. Your head was pounding from the sleeping pill hangover and you just wanted to get this over with and go home.

“Why on earth would I do that?!”

“You tell me!” you exploded. 

“Piet,” Wanda said. “There is no need for yelling. What did you do?”

His sister’s disapproval in particular seemed to set him off. “Will no one see I am innocent? What would I want with a recipe? And the tiny girl has no proof! I have never met her before! How do we even know that it was me?” 

You slapped the card with his number onto the kitchen counter with a satisfying _‘smack!’_ You’d been fiddling with it in your pocket for a while now, waiting for the right moment. 

Pietro was silent, but the ‘well, shit’ was eloquently communicated via body language. 

“Look, I’m not pressing charges or anything, here. I just want my cookie recipe back.”

“Ahhh,” he said uncomfortably at the mention of cookies. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and avoided his sister’s eyes. “Cookies I do remember. When I wake up, they are next to me. Well, a few.”

“A few?” you echoed in disbelief. “There were three dozen. Where are the rest.”

“Wait, you’re talking about those cookies that you passed out last night,” Bruce cut in.

“I am?” Pietro frowned. “I did?” Yeah, you thought. This guy doesn’t remember anything from the night before.

Bruce gestured to the kitchen area behind him. “You came swooping in late in a cheap Cupid costume and handed them out like valentines. Figured it was someone’s Valentine’s Day gift for the team. But it was only me and Natasha up, so you only got rid of two. I don’t know about the rest. She tossed hers out, I saved mine for today. Sorry, Bea,” he tacked on.

“The rest…” Pietro rubbed his neck with discomfort. “I ate them… I think. Last night I don’t remember so good.”

“All of them?” you gasped. “Those were—” You paused to take a steadying breath. “How have you been feeling today?” You doubted he actually ate them all, considering he was stringing complete sentences together.

“Hungover?” Pietro shrugged, bloodshot eyes regarding you quizzically.

“You’re not feeling weird?” you persisted.

“Why would I—” Pietro’s eyes went wide with comprehension. “They are drug cookies. You are a drug dealer.”

Behind you, Bruce was having trouble breathing through his laughter. He kept casting his eyes about as if he wished Clint or Natasha were here to witness this. Obviously, he was very entertained by Pietro’s absurd idea that strait-laced Bea Dorsey had been smuggling weed across Manhattan. 

And the idea _was_ absurd. But it also happened to be true. The irony was, if your theory about Bruce’s laid back mood this afternoon was correct (i.e. that it was because he’d eaten a cookie himself), the real reason Bruce was laughing uncontrollably was not because Pietro was wrong but because he was right.

“N-no,” you stammered. “ _No,_ it’s a just a family—Do you have the recipe or not? It was at the bottom of the container, under the wax paper.” You wondered how Pietro could be so unaffected. He was acting strangely, but not like he’d ingested thirty-plus weed cookies in a single sitting.

But Pietro was too busy crowing in vindicated rapture to bother with your question. “Aha! You are all thinking I am a dirty thief, but she is a drug dealer!”

“So it’s okay to steal if it’s from other criminals?” you squinted, sidetracked by his smudged logic.

Pietro tilted his chin down to squint right back at you with his face inches away, arms folded self-righteously over his chest. “So you admit you are a criminal?”

Irritated breath seethed through your clenched teeth. “Look, just. Show me the damn tupperware!”

“Right this way, Tiny Montana.”

“It’s Tony Montana,” you sneered, sullen.

“I know what I said.” He started off down the hall, thankfully at a human speed, presumably to his room.

You trailed behind him, wincing as the change in lighting messed with your headache. “So you’re not even going to apologize, huh?”

He bristled, but you couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or just generally stubborn. “You don’t heff to be so uptight. It’s only cookies.”

“They’re special. They’re like a delicacy. I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s one of those special family tradition recipe things.”

His face was closed off but he tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I admit, the four I had when I woke up were… quite good.”

“You ate four just today?” you balked at him without thinking. “How are you _functioning?”_

Pietro quirked a dark eyebrow at you, amused. “You admit they are laced?”

“I admit nothing,” you snapped. “And they couldn’t have been laced, since you’re obviously unaffected.” It was a convenient defense, so convenient you were starting to worry that the lie was true. Maybe you’d put regular butter in the mixing bowl instead of the pricey cannabutter you’d brought to Nana’s. Or worse, maybe you’d packed the wrong batch of cookies to take with you. An alarmed look twisted your face as a scene from _Grandma’s Boy_ danced mockingly behind your eyelids. 

“I have a fast metabolism. Lucky for you, I am not easily intoxicated.”

“Yeah? Then how come you don’t remember last night? Heck, you were already half out of your mind when we ran into each other!”

Pietro sniffed somewhat defensively. “My metabolism works quickly on human substances. I had not until last night tested liquor for the gods.”

“Wait, you went drinking with Thor?” That explained _everything._ “Well _that_ was a good idea.”

He scowled bitterly at the sarcasm. If your brief time in the building today was any indication, this guy already got his fair share of lectures on a daily basis. “How do you know the Avengers?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” you deflected, unwilling to let your mugger drag you back into the past.

“Personally. How do you know the Avengers personally?”

“I used to work here,” was all you said.

He snorted like you’d made a good joke, but quieted down when you took the left at the end of the hallway without prompting, heading to the side of the building where his quarters most likely were.

“Here,” he said when you reached his room. 

You noted the unethical number of sneakers littering the floor, but you only had eyes for your glass container. There! On the bed! You rushed to it and swept it into grateful arms, cradling it like a baby.

“Not a crumb left,” you muttered when you looked inside, melancholy but resigned. An empty container of cookies was a familiar sight to anyone in your family. You sighed. The cookies wouldn’t have worked anyways. You weren’t big on drugs—in fact you were basically as strait-laced as Bruce assumed—but you’d already tried smoking before bed once as a sleep aid on a friend’s recommendation and it hadn’t made a lick of difference or helped at all. The truth was that you had been desperate for a miracle and held out hope that combining THC with the most comforting and special family treat would somehow magically cure your insomnia. 

“I’m sure they weren’t cheap for you to make,” Pietro commented, still trying to get you to confess that they weren’t regular desserts.

Lifting the wax paper, you breathed a sigh of relief at the welcome sight of aged brown cardstock and old-fashioned cursive underneath it. “Forget the cookies. This is what I’m really after.”

The pent-up anxiety that the heirloom could be lost forever left you all at once in a gust, leaving you deflated and slightly dizzy. It was disorienting to be in this strange social situation in the midst of a sleeping pill hangover. It was disorienting to be back in Tony’s tower again at all. Your relief at completing your search and rescue mission was potent, almost painful, and it left you unsteady on your feet in its wake. Pietro was staring, you noticed, as you swayed slightly. What were you supposed to be doing now?

“I uh,” you pressed two fingers to you temple to focus. “I need to get my bag from the kitchen.” You left.

Bruce had wandered off by the time you returned to the living area, but Wanda was still there on one of the sofas. She eyed you as you crossed to where your bag sat. You were dizzy and ready to be home.

“You should have a glass of water. Sit before you leave,” Wanda suggested in a flat tone that gave away nothing.

You frowned at the unsolicited advice, but it actually sounded like a really good idea. You nodded and got the water yourself and sat at the kitchen island. The card with Pietro’s number still lay on the table. The one he’d slipped into your back pocket (jeez, buy a girl a drink first) as quick as blinking. Was his sister Enhanced too, you wondered? She said nothing else. The water was cool and the quiet wasn’t bad either.

You didn’t see Pietro reenter the room, but one moment he was gone and the next he was leaning on the back of one of the sofas carrying on a quiet conversation with Wanda in Sokovian. Your water was finished. Your recipe card was recovered. It was time for you to go back.

After getting as far as shouldering your bag, your exit was interrupted.

“Sleepy?!” Tony and Natasha strolled in shoulder to shoulder. It was gratifying how surprised and happy Tony looked to see you. You were a relatively quiet coworker and housemate, you’d never been sure whether Tony had any particular affection for you. Besides saving your life several times over, but that could be said of most of the Avengers. 

“Tony!” In retrospect, it was lucky he was even in town. You figured he would’ve been in Malibu this time of year.

“Wait, wait, time out,” Tony said, eyeing the slip of paper Pietro had handed you the night before. “You’re one of the girls Eurotrash here gave his number to last night? Sleepy, don’t tell me you took up stripping.”

“‘One of the girls?’” you echoed. “How many did he go through?”

Pietro scowled, likely not appreciating being spoken about like wasn’t in the room. “Enough,” was all he said.

“Well over a hundred,” Tony said drily.

A hundred?! Not only were you out $50 worth of cannabutter cookies and a day’s worth of work, but you weren’t even special. “Did no one give you the superhero memo? Aren’t you supposed to being making the streets safer instead of terrorizing them?” 

“Believe it or not, there are in fact women in this city who enjoy the company of a charming, handsome man.” With superhuman speed, he whipped out his phone and displayed the neverending scroll of inbound texts. “If I am terrorizing, why do I have fifty dates in my calendar?”

“Pietro, I swear,” Wanda exclaimed with exasperation. “I’m not helping you cancel those. Remember our deal—I don’t help with your breakups anymore.”

“Why would I cancel?”

Wanda just scoffed like her brother wasn’t worth arguing with in such a mood. 

Tony blinked slowly, unentertained by sibling drama. “Am I the only one concerned that Sleepy hasn’t answered my question about stripping?”

You rolled your eyes. “I’ll have you know that I became a private chef. The kind that keeps her clothes on,” you specified.

Natasha groaned wistfully. “You still bake? I miss your sharlotka every day.”

Tony’s eyebrows engaged Business Mode. “Who are you working for? What are they paying you?”

You suspected Tony had said these exact words many times in his life. Maybe not about cooking, though. “It’s just for a few families in the Village. I go in once or twice a week, make enough for them to reheat. Nothing too fancy.”

“Do you still make that brown butter curried lobster?” Tony asked intently.

When you were here last, you had not been employed as a chef, but you had lived and cooked here. In the slow weeks between global disasters and covert ops assignments, you’d occupied your time perfecting over the top recipes and sharing with your teammates as a way to decompress. It had evolved into an expected ritual over time, but it had been a role you’d enjoyed. As someone who was not exactly a real Avenger nor exactly support staff, you’d been drawn to that feeling of being needed and appreciated by the team. Your brown butter lobster pasta had been an especially big hit. 

“... Well, yes.”

Behind you, Natasha tossed Tony a desperate look. It was as close to ‘please please can we keep the puppy?’ as Natasha Romanoff’s face could get.

“Pff, ‘nothing too fancy,’ my ass, Sleepy. I can’t believe you never told me you were cooking for a living!” Tony complained.

You leveled him a flat look for a long moment.

He eventually picked up on his error and corrected himself in an identical tone. “I can’t believe I never remembered that you told me you were cooking for a living!”

_There it is,_ you thought. Though of course it didn’t surprise you that Tony hadn’t retained the details of your personal life you shared in a Christmas card literally two whole years ago. You didn’t take it personally; you already knew JARVIS had been the only one who read Christmas cards delivered here.

“Okay, it’s decided,” Tony concluded with a clap.

Wait, what. “What is?” you asked. Tony didn’t answer and the Maximoffs looked as out of the loop as you were.

Natasha was pumping her fist with a quiet “Yesss.”

“Good work, team,” said Clint, and when the hell did Clint even get here? He saluted you from his secluded spot atop some railing on the second level and dissolved back into the shadows. 

“What’s decided?”

*

Tony fiddled with his goatee behind his desk as you mulled over this deal with the devil. You’d done your protesting, but he could tell you were really considering it now. The salary he was offering you was absurd. You’d have enough to move out of your mother’s home in no time. You might even be able to afford one of those experimental treatments or see some specialists abroad. Not to mention that S.H.I.E.L.D. had access to some extremely niche researchers on the Enhanced. It was tempting. You wouldn’t be buying cannabutter from a friend of a friend and sneaking it into your grandmother’s kitchen if you weren’t desperate for solutions.

Still, there was no way your mother would approve. She and Nana were so happy to see you out of your old job. Technically, you wouldn’t be going back. You’d be doing the same job you were working now with similar but exclusive hours, private cheffing several days a week. Just in a different building. Your mother wouldn’t see it that way. But it didn’t have to be forever. Just long enough to pad your savings and talk to some specialists. And that wouldn’t take long considering the salary Tony was offering. The salary almost made you feel like you were taking advantage, but in a way you were trying to get your life back on track from when S.H.I.E.L.D. itself had inadvertently derailed it. It evened out. 

You shook Tony’s hand, steadfastly ignoring the unsurprised told-you-so lift in his brows behind his heavy-rimmed glasses. What did he have to be smug about when you were so clearly getting the better end of this deal?

“You aren’t as peppy as I remember,” he commented.

You gave him a grim smile reflexively, unsure whether it was apologetic. “It’s been a while.” A while since you’d had a natural good night’s sleep, since you’d last seen Tony, since you let your old life touch your new one.

Your mother wouldn’t have to know. Because technically you weren’t changing jobs anyways. Just picking up a new client. Or nine… or however many people lived here now. You made a note to self to ask Tony’s new AI about that as well as food allergies.

Walking toward the elevators, you heard voices from down the hall. Arguing. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was difficult to ignore.

“You are too old to be acting this way, Piet! Twelve-year-olds are too old to be acting this way! Stumbling drunk around New York City! Getting into fights with perfectly nice girls!”

“She’s not nice,” Pietro mumbled petulantly. “Too uptight.”

“Stark seems to like her,” Wanda argued.

“Strike two.” Apparently Pietro wasn’t Tony’s biggest fan.

Wanda changed the subject. “There are better ways to deal with your problems, Piet,” she insisted. “You feel lonely and out of place so you drink with Thor and try to sleep with every girl in the city. This solves nothing and you wake up regretting.”

“I’m not lonely!” Pietro scoffed, insulted.

“Why else would you do this? It’s not as though you actually plan to date fifty women, or however many it was.”

“Maybe I do,” Pietro snapped. You could hear the lie in his voice as clearly as you could hear his growing resolve to prove his sister wrong at all costs. “You don’t know everything, Wanda.”

She didn’t even dignify his last accusation with a response. All she would say was, “Be an adult and cancel those dates.”

“I _am_ an adult and you don’t make these decisions for me. I have no regrets. Just because you’re in a relationship doesn’t make you expert on what is best for other people. Besides, _I’m older_.” The rest of their argument trailed off into what sounded like a well-worn fight they often had between themselves.

You left them be and pressed the call button for the elevator. You had things to do. Menus to plan, you thought with an excited wiggle in your fingers.

Besides, Pietro’s ridiculous dates were going to be _his_ problem, not yours. Or so you thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _draga mea_ \- my darling  
>  _mielul mea_ \- my little lamb  
>  _frumoasa_ \- beautiful


	2. Chapter 2

_Braised beef short ribs with skillet blistered tomatoes and pistachios served with a parsnip skordalia, kale salad, and sage butter yeast rolls._

Okay, so the first meal you made for the team was admittedly a little over the top. Whatever, you’d missed them and Tony was certainly paying you more than all your previous clients combined. (You felt bad about leaving those other families in the lurch when you called a week ago to give them notice that you were starting a new full-time position. But it was a nice silver lining to be able to recommend some of your chef friends as replacements and throw a little work their way.)

You were pretty sure you prepared more than two entire cows’ worth of ribs—your shoulders were still sore from lugging the meat into the building—yet Thor still ended up breaking a chair arm-wrestling with Steve (you still had to keep yourself from calling him ‘Captain Rogers,’ upon his request) over the last piece of meat. Tony didn’t appear to notice since he was too busy stuffing his face with rolls. So overall, you would venture to say you succeeded in pleasing your employer, incidental property damage notwithstanding.

“I’m a genius,” Tony groaned through his carbs. Tender crumbs of fluffy bread sprayed onto the dinner table and Natasha shot a dirty look at his table manners. You were mostly just glad the rolls would all be eaten—there was a surplus since the Mystery Twins hadn’t shown up for dinner.

“Well, yes?” you said from the kitchen, not quite sure what he was getting at. Everyone knew he was a genius.

Instead of clarifying, he simply plucked another warm yeast roll from the bread basket on the table, smearing the herb butter on top of it with his thumb. “I’m a genius,” he whispered again, apparently talking to the roll. “And I’m doubling your pay.”

You rolled your eyes at his dramatics and carried on with tidying up the counter. “I’ve got to go visit my grandma, but I’ll be back Wednesday. Everybody eats fish, right?” You slung your bag over one shoulder and tied up your scarf.

Thor wrinkled his nose (you remembered that he ate fish but took umbrage with its classification as a ‘meat,’ as well as its use in place of Real Meat), but you felt you could convince him.

“Oh,” you caught yourself just before you disappeared down the hallway, “and there’s some homemade ice cream in the freezer when you’re finished with dinner.”

“What flavor?” Clint called, though you were already out of sight. You were already running late for your visit and you didn’t want to explain precisely why that was to Nana; she didn’t know you were working in Avengers Tower again (albeit as a cook) and you were sure she wouldn’t like it.

“Coffee and donuts!” you yelled over your shoulder.

There was a moment of silence in the dining area before the sounds of tousling erupted, presumably from an unsportsmanlike dash for the freezer. Good thing you made three pints, you grinned to yourself. Just wait until they tried it. It was a coffee frozen custard you’d made two nights ago when you couldn’t sleep (shocker). It was studded with real donut chunks, too—sifted so that there were only big chunks and without any sandy little crumbs. You dipped them in dark chocolate to keep them fresh and soft-not-soggy. And as an experiment in overkill, you made a salted caramel ripple with fresh coffee grounds mixed in for some added crunch—only in one of the pints, though, like a special surprise. 

“Which of the pints?”

“Ah!” You clutched your heart, yelping in a very unbecoming fashion when Wanda popped up in front of you out of nowhere (or, well, from around a corner, but it felt like out of nowhere). She was wearing a cute charcoal peacoat and red leather gloves. “I’m sorry, what?”

She quirked a thin grin at your goofy reaction. “Which of the pints has the ripple?” she repeated calmly in her velvet Sokovian accent. 

In the week since taking your new job, you’d caught up on Avengers news. You knew about Wanda and her abilities, but this was your first time actually witnessing them. With the slight grin on her face, you could see the family resemblance between her and Pietro. Dizzily, you wondered if their parents were both supermodels or something. Oh jeez, she could hear all of this, couldn’t she? 

Whether she was still using her telepathy or not, she merely stood before you with a placid expression and waited for a response. Her powers kind of terrified you with their potential for not only violence but also severe humiliation (which was unequivocally worse), but you had a favorable impression of Wanda Maximoff ever since you overheard her little stand-off with her brother last week. 

So you decided to throw her a bone. “The one with the gold lid.”

She smiled prettily for you and called over her shoulder, “Piet, get the one with the gold lid!”

A streak of silver-blue rushed past you and then back down the hall again. Wanda grinned and tipped her head to you in thanks. Then she turned on her heel and followed her brother, calling after him to ask if he’d remembered spoons. 

Loud noises from the dining area echoed to you down the hallway. “I’m doubling your pay, Sleepy!” Tony bellowed through a mouthful of ice cream—it wouldn’t be until you got your paycheck at the end of the week that you would realize he wasn’t joking.

*

You’d done your best to butter Nana up by bringing her the leftover beef bones from dinner, but she still tutted over your lateness and put you right to work helping her make beef stock. 

Now that she felt you had your professional life sorted out, she’d taken aim at your love life. “When’s the last time you went on a date, honeybee?” Despite the endearment, the question came out as sharp as Nana meant it.

“Um,” you balked. Another topic where the truth wouldn’t please her. Now that you considered it, it had been a pitifully long time. “It’s been a while. I still have dreams, though. Plans.”

Nana turned to face you fully. You were precisely the same height and when she looked you dead in the eye the weight of her no-nonsense gaze made you snap to attention.

“The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The slowest way is through dreaming.” 

“What’s that mean?” you frowned. It wasn’t one her usual adages.

She turned back to stir the soup. “It means dreaming gets you nowhere if you don’t do something about it, Bea.”

“I thought slow was good,” you said with a mischievous grin from under your lashes. The sum of practically all Nana’s cooking wisdoms was ‘slow is good.’

Nana tsked and rapped her wooden spoon forcefully against the edge of the pot. If it were thirty years ago, you suspected she’d have rapped it on your knuckles for sassing her. “Slow is good when you have time. I’d like to meet my great-grandchildren.”

“Nana, you _have_ great-grandchildren.”

“I’d like to meet some great-grandchildren who have braincells,” she clarified, having taken it very personally when your cousin Sarah had the nerve to leave New York and have twins with a teeth whitener in Orlando.

“That’s a bit harsh. They’re six years old.” Nana just shook her head stubbornly at your admonishment. Your mom was fond of saying that Nana loved doing the telling but you couldn’t tell the woman anything. “Let’s give’em another year before we abandon hope,” you teased, bumping hips with her and taking over the stirring.

*

_Whole rainbow trout seasoned with tarragon and olive oil, wrapped in applewood bacon, and served on a bed of buttermilk grits and arugula._

Speed Racer was missing from dinner on Wednesday, too. The whole living area smelled of bacon and tarragon. As an olive branch to Thor, you decided to wrap the rainbow trout thickly with applewood bacon and it turned out splendidly, if you did say so yourself. 

“I’m gonna get fat,” Natasha said wistfully, but didn’t quite manage to look sad about it.

The team coaxed you into joining them at the table this time. It was sharply funny to you that mealtimes had quickly evolved into sit-down family dinners instead of the grab-and-go style you knew the team usually fell back on. No one had requested or required everyone to eat together, but more and more team members started showing up at the table like that the longer you cooked for them. There was an ironic veneer of wholesomeness, homeyness, about all sitting together. Though you were quiet for the most part, you enjoyed sitting back and soaking up the conversations and quirks of this unlikely team. Wanda was in attendance tonight, across the table and a few seats down from you. She was mostly just eating and observing like you were, but her facial expressions and bright eyes gave away the fact that she was paying close attention and definitely had opinions. Idly, you hoped you and Wanda would have the chance to become friends. 

Predictably, Thor was the first one to finish his meal.

“I have not sampled such bounty from the river for many years, Lady Beatrice!” Thor patted his stomach with a sated grin. You were pleased to note that Thor he had totally cleaned his plate. It was absolutely spotless… Wait. 

“Thor, there were bones in there,” you goggled at him. He’d eaten, like, four trout. 

He gave you a half-interested is-that-so glance to acknowledge this revelation before shrugging and turning back to his beer. 

The chatter at the dinner table was interrupted when Pietro zoomed into the room. You frowned. He was supposed to be out tonight and you hadn’t prepared enough fish—or rather, you hadn’t saved enough fish from Thor—for Pietro to eat.

“Sister, a word?”

“What is it, Piet?” Wanda remained seated, visibly unwilling to let Thor polish off the grits without her. She sounded less distracted after sparing a glance in her brother’s direction. “What happened to you?”

Pietro looked windswept and unhappy. “What does ‘eighty effingdee’ mean?”

Clint snorted. “The date went that well, huh?”

Pietro shot him a dangerous look, unamused. 

“Did you not google it?” Wanda asked.

“I tried,” he frowned. “I think I am not spelling it the right way.”

“Brother, will you please stop these idiotic stunts? There is only so much trouble I can get you out of.” 

But instead of responding, Pietro got distracted sniffing the air. “What is that smell? I skipped this for vegan food?” He looked ready to cry, but it inspired no pity in you. It was his own fault for never coming to your dinners, honestly. 

“What’s on the menu for Friday, Sleepy?” asked Tony, deliberately lazy and offhand. That tone of voice always meant Tony was being mean-spirited. Behind him, Pietro eyed you tragically like he absolutely did not want to hear the answer. He had a date Friday.

“Steaks, chimichurri, roasted root veggies. Maybe panna cotta. Do you guys like panna cotta?”

Pietro made a hurt sound, ignored amongst the din of flavor suggestions for Friday’s dessert. 

He brightened up quickly with an idea. “Could I bring a date here for Friday? You know, romantic private dining, great view of the city…” 

His question was apparently aimed at Steve, whom Pietro tended to look to as their leader, but it was Wanda who answered him. “Can we dispense with this silliness, Piet? You don’t need to be dating every woman in New York.” She had a tired air about her as though she had tolerated a joke for long enough.

“I like dating!” Pietro insisted, but the credibility of his defense was undermined by the pitchiness of his voice.

“You’re going to get a _disease,_ ” Wanda complained.

While his jaw dropped in offense and the twins continued to argue, you turned to Natasha. “Do they always argue like this?”

“Not always,” Natasha commented in her perma-rasp. “Kinda fun to watch, though.” She took a bite of fish and kept her eyes on the action. It was certainly more entertaining than Bruce and Tony’s conversation about isomers or whatever.

Wanda accused her brother of being ‘fast.’ When he failed to appear bothered by this, she harrumphed, “Do not smile, this is no compliment!”

Then she had to explain this other definition of ‘fast’ to Pietro in Sokovian. Pietro, of course became totally enamored of this second English meaning of ‘fast’ and vowed to wear the title with pride. 

Wanda snapped something in Sokovian that made Pietro clench his jaw and snap right back. On they went, switching often between English and their native language.

Natasha snorted beside you. “He’s mad, but he still sounds so adorable,” she murmured in your direction.

“What would you even know about it, sister?!” Pietro was yelling.

Natasha’s shoulders shook. “Seeester,” she parroted with a fond laugh.

Pietro instantly whipped around, his glare firmly planted on you. His bold brows let it be known that he was none too pleased at being mocked, but it wasn’t even you! You silently protested your innocence, making a shocked face and pointing at Natasha. 

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t buying that, but he had already turned back to Wanda to argue his next point. You scowled at Natasha who just laughed even harder. Whatever, screw both of them. You’d let Pietro figure out his date had called him ‘A.D. effing D.’ on his own.

*

_New York strip with chimichurri, roasted root vegetables, and orange panna cotta._

It wasn’t totally certain, but you were pretty sure Pietro thought the team was joking about you being an ex-agent. (Not really an ex-Avenger; more like a second string Avenger. JV material.) The only times you ever spoke to each other were about food. He never apologized for stealing from you or being rude about it. You had hoped he would bring it up because you felt you owed him an apology of your own for overreacting that day. Put in perspective, throwing a fit over some cookies was pretty shameful. This guy was from _Sokovia._ His whole country was gone and there you were yelling about sweets. But he never broached the topic at all, let alone to apologize. Codename Quicksilver was not comfortable with that kind of conversation or self-reflection, you imagined. It wasn’t too surprising that he lacked emotional maturity. That was what happened when someone spent their formative years locked in a cell. So you didn’t talk to each other much.

You didn’t mind being treated like a chef and nothing more; that was who you’d been for the past two years. But you got the sense that you and Pietro both caught each other off guard on Wednesday afternoon.

The kitchen was peaceful and filled with the smell of herbs. You were minding your own business, chopping parsley for chimichurri on the kitchen counter when someone appeared behind you out of fucking nowhere.

“I’m STARVING, is there foo—”

Your assailant dropped like a sack of potatoes. Spinning around with an embarrassing squeak on your lips and your arms raised for a fight, you looked down to find Pietro slumped on the floor. Shit shit shit, you hadn’t meant to put him to sleep; it was just your first reflex when you were startled.

His chest rose and fell slowly, in deep REM sleep already.

Wanda traipsed into the kitchen at that moment and as she took in the scene, the calm immediately drained from her face. Shit, were her hands glowing red? You wanted no part of that. No thank you.

“No, it’s not what it—I didn’t mean—he startled me is all!”

She pinned you down with a heavy stare and all of a sudden your brain felt all mixed up, like a salad that was being tossed. Right, Wanda was a mind-reader. Telepathy was seriously disorienting up-close. 

Whatever memory or thought Wanda saw in your mind made her bark out a surprised laugh and rise up from her fight stance. Her hands were people-colored again, thank god. “I have warned him not to scare people like this—my brother is a fast runner, but a slow learner, I’m afraid.”

Pietro twitched in his sleep like he knew he was being talked about. 

“Let me just,” you brushed Pietro’s temple and returned him to wakefulness. You could have just woken him up the old fashioned way, but you found that the people you put to sleep would stay groggy for the rest of the day unless you also woke them using your powers. (It was only after you did this that you considered the idea that a sluggish Pietro might make life in Avengers Tower a little easier for everyone. Hindsight’s 20/20.)

He groaned and rubbed his head. “Whuh…”

“You are like us,” Wanda said to you, inspecting you thoroughly as though you were an unfinished jigsaw puzzle and she was looking for the corner pieces. 

“Oh, um, I guess.” You fumbled your words, still off-kilter from accidentally knocking a guy out. Your heart rate hadn’t even settled down yet. “I was just born weird, though. And I don’t have that fancy healing factor they’ve been passing around.”

Recognition visibly dawned on her. “You are Chloroform.”

Pietro was just listening, still in the process of coming-to.

You were a little surprised she knew of you—you were never cereal box material—but then again, she was once a HYDRA operative dead set on taking down Tony Stark. You had probably made the list of ‘known associates.’ So the Maximoffs would know your codename and the broad strokes of your bio, but they wouldn’t know your face. As an agent who primarily worked covert ops, back in your Avenging days your battle uniform was designed to keep your face mostly covered. 

Wanda’s face took on a funny grin. “You are different from how I imagined, to say the least.”

“Okay, so you _are_ an agent,” Pietro wheezed weakly, voice pitchy.

“Were,” you corrected. 

“Were you fired for knocking out the other Avengers?” he joked drily, slowly rising to his feet. ‘Other’ sounded like _ather_ in his accent.

“You got lucky. I was holding a knife when you popped out at me.”

“I just wanted to know when we would be eating!”

“Well do it slower next time, for both our sakes. I didn’t mean to knock you out, but I can’t help it if you startle me like that.”

“Roger that.” The words sounded a little goofy on his tongue, but Pietro had apparently developed a penchant for military lingo, picking it up little by little from his compatriots.

“I cannot believe you are Chloroform,” Wanda reiterated. “HY—our intelligence had you listed as decommissioned.”

The word made you huff. Decommissioned. Like a plane or a lighthouse. “I am. I just cook now.”

“Looks to me like your powers work fine,” Pietro grumbled to the side, rubbing the shoulder he’d landed on when he fell.

“Not like they used to.” You left the topic alone from there, turning back to your parsley.

“Why?” Pietro asked.

“Stop being nosy and get dressed for your date,” Wanda admonished him, picking up on the fact that this was a sore subject for you. From the way she said ‘date,’ it was clear what she thought of Pietro’s current love life.

“I lost them, most of them, in an accident a couple of years back,” you told them since they might as well know the gist of it. ‘Accident’ wasn’t the most accurate word but it would have to do. “Can’t sleep so well since then, but I can still put other people to sleep. One or two, if I really have to.” 

Pietro gave a sardonic huff from the kitchen floor, living proof that you still had a sliver of your old power.

“I’m managing,” you concluded with a shrug. “But I’m not Chloroform anymore.” Hopefully your heavy eye contact with Wanda effectively communicated that you were done talking about it and that you would really appreciate her not digging around your brain for more details. 

To end the conversation on your backstory (you used to joke with your dad about how you weren’t a superhero because you didn’t have a tragic backstory; wasn’t really funny anymore), you dug around the fridge for the glass where the surplus orange panna cotta was chilling, not quite a full serving. 

“Wanna try the panna cotta?” you asked her with your head in the fridge. Snagging two spoons from the drawer, you passed the dessert and utensils to Wanda. And you got back to work. 

*

Ever since you accidentally knocked Pietro out, he’d taken to staring at you behind your back trying to picture you as a superhero. 

You understood. Your dad used to love joking that you had the most rock solid secret identity a hero could hope for. You didn’t look or act like an Avenger. And you weren’t one. Not in the ‘the aliens have come, send in the A team for an aerial battle royale’ sort of way. Back when you were still in action, you were covert ops. Often called in for recon or as support for the real heroes. You weren’t built for battle and you were never supposed to look conspicuous or intimidating. Don’t misunderstand, you kept in shape when you were on the roster (though you’d definitely lost some muscle mass since leaving—only your arms stayed strong from breadmaking) and your hand-to-hand was nothing to sniff at, but your real strength lay with your powers. 

To be honest, you were kind of a one trick pony with the sleep-inducement. Anything you could do, Clint could do with a well-aimed tranq dart. There was also the freak side power of randomly seeing other people’s dreams, but you had no idea how to control that, let alone make it useful. The dreamsharing ability had remained untouched by the incident that ruined your life, because of course it would have. Being the most useless of your powers. Still, back in the day you had come in handy on multiple covert missions, since psychically induced sleep was more subtle than a neon pink blowdart to the ass.

It was a comfort to you that your powers wouldn’t have been useful against a robot army even if you had been in commission for the Ultron debacle—your powers could induce sleep, not sleep _mode._ (You would say that fact helped you sleep at night, but. Well.)

You weren’t built like a tank because you weren’t one. Your residence in Avengers Tower wasn’t so much because you’d been an inextricable powerhouse part of the team—you’d started as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who occasionally worked with the Avengers and it quickly became apparent that your powers were equally beneficial when used on your teammates versus your enemies. Nick Fury came to recognize the value of ensuring good rest on the regular for a pack of stone cold traumatized weirdos who often needed the help. The PTSD was strong with this bunch. So you were offered a room, the chance to board with the varsity squad. Some days when you were living in Avengers Tower the first time around, you felt more like a therapy dog than a teammate. Not that you really minded; it was nice to feel helpful. And your cooking hobby quickly became another fringe benefit for the team. 

A benefit that one of the newest additions to the Avengers was shamelessly taking advantage of. 

Catering Pietro’s revolving door of first dates was not what you had in mind when you accepted Tony’s job offer. It shouldn’t have been that different from your usual responsibilities. Most nights, it basically meant you just set aside two servings to be whisked off to a separate dining area. Not too troublesome. Except.

“And she likes peaches. Can we get peaches?”

“Sure, Pietro,” you sighed, pulling out your grocery list to update it. “How do you know she likes peaches, anyways? Isn’t this a first date?”

“She put one next to her name in my phone. See?” Pietro hold up his smart phone to point out the little emoji. 

You blinked.

Even considering the fact that Tony doubled your salary a couple weeks ago, you didn’t get paid enough for this shit.

It started out fairly low maintenance, but it seemed like with every date that went by, Pietro had more needs.

“Don’t you have a healthier recipe for tiramisu?”

“Don’t you have a twin you can annoy?” 

You didn’t pause layering the tiramisu that you were already most of the way finished making. In your opinion, there wasn’t much merit to eking out a fatless sugarless version of the dessert—you either ate tiramisu or you didn’t. But more importantly, you knew that Pietro was hardly concerned about his diet. He was just being difficult for fun.

“She is on a ‘date,’” Pietro grumbled, mouth pinching like he’d bit into something bitter.

You felt a little bad for him, but only a little. You’d seen how close he and Wanda were and he must be having a difficult time adjusting to this new life when Wanda was starting to go off on her own adventures with her boyfriend. Manfriend? Robotfriend? Pietro seemed unsure of how to act around Vision. Still, you didn’t appreciate being cast as Wanda’s understudy for the role of Pietro’s pestering-bag any time he got bored. You weren’t his sister and you hadn’t signed on for that job.

Beyond Pietro’s badgering and custom menus and last minute requests, from time to time you were even required to manage the dates themselves like some kind of unpaid social secretary. A hazard of being involved personally or professionally with the Avengers was that their schedule was never going to be set in stone.

“Hello?” An unfamiliar voice echoed down the empty hallway.

You were seated at the kitchen island using a fork to pick at the entire cast iron skillet of fajita chicken and veg in front of you. 

“Pietro?” the stranger ventured with uncertainty. 

It was March, it was Fajita Friday, an emergency swept the Avengers out on duty just half an hour before dinner, and Pietro forgot to notify his date. Typical.

“They got called out on a job!” you yelled to the poor girl. A not-so-natural disaster in Detroit meant the team wouldn’t be back until morning at the earliest. “But I’ve got some fresh guacamole here if you wanna take some to go!”

*

One important fact to know about Pietro was that when it came to food, he had no patience whatsoever. None. Apparently, it had something to do with his super speed. A super metabolism was basically impossible to keep up with and, hey great, that was your job now! 

Even during his dates, he developed a habit of constantly coming to check on the kitchen. “How long until the dinner is ready?” “Are there extra potatoes?” “What time will you be serving the dessert?” “Are you sure it isn’t ready yet?” 

“How many times do you really need to baste the chicken?”

“The same number of times you feel the need to barge in here and disrupt my work,” you finally snapped back after placidly answering the past eighty questions. You were too tired for this shit. “If you want dinner at all, you’ll turn your speedy ass around and pester your poor date instead. One more peep out of you and I’m giving Thor your dinner.”

Wanda didn’t bat an eye, observing all this from her seat at the counter where she’d been chatting with you while you cooked until you were so rudely interrupted.

“You won’t.” Pietro crossed his arms, all cockiness. 

All you had to do was raise a single eyebrow. It didn’t really matter whether he believed you. In fact, you kind of wanted him to call your bluff so you could see his face when you followed through—and you would absolutely follow through. “Try me.”

Pietro looked you up and down, rolling his eyes for effect, but dutifully turned on his heel and disappeared. 

“I’m sorry I have to yell at your brother like this,” you sighed to Wanda once he was gone. 

Snapping at someone like that was unfamiliar to you. You considered yourself a tolerant, patient person, but you still weren’t used to being loopy and grumpy all the time. Insomnia was never a problem for you up until a couple of years ago. Up to that point, sleep was basically your biggest hobby. Being deprived of it changed your entire personality. 

Wanda didn’t appear bothered in the slightest. “Don’t be,” she said. “He enjoys it.”

From that point on, almost all of Pietro’s dates took place in the Tower. The ones you knew about, anyways. He had a habit of constantly bugging you and nitpicking your food, so you didn’t take this development as a particular compliment to your cooking. You figured Pietro brought them all here because that way it gave him the chance to show off his swank digs, he didn’t have to pay for dinner, and probably also because it made the transition from dinner to ‘Netflix and chill’ that much smoother. Lech.

“I was planning a date for Friday. On the terrace if the weather is good. What is the menu?”

You consulted the menu doc you kept on your phone. “I was planning on softshell crab with a crunchy green salad. Not sure about the particulars, yet.”

“Softshell?” he asked. You showed him a picture of the dish on your phone to clarify, but he screwed up his face at the sight of the whole crab.

“Fine, tough guy. I can do broccoli tempura for you.” You knew how to season it well enough that it would hold its own as an entree.

Pietro looked just as disgusted by the mention of broccoli. 

You took deep breaths, trying not to explode at him. _He helped save the world that one time,_ you reminded yourself. At this rate, his credit from that was gonna run out soon. 

For one thing, you saw him eat broccoli just last week. You knew he didn’t have a problem with it, he was just riling you up on purpose. (It was truly impressive considering your first impression of this guy that he had only become more of a nuisance over the course of your acquaintance.) But you weren’t going to yell at him. Wanda had clued you in on the fact that Pietro got a kick out of that, and you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction.

“Oh my god, fine. I’ll fry some chicken for you. Happy now?”

“Thanks a million,” he said, pointing at you with cheesy fingerguns. 

His unironic use of outdated American slang made you want to smile, but you bit it back, clinging to your annoyance as you watched him zoom off to be a douche somewhere else. 

*

_Softshell crab with broccoli tempura, cucumber salad, and lemon soufflé._

“BEA!”

You smirked down at the custard base you were whisking over the stove. “Something wrong with your meal, sir?” you asked, all innocent professionalism.

“Do not play cute,” Pietro said with an air of danger to his voice. Even with his hair frazzled and his eyes squinted threateningly, he still managed to look distractingly dashing.

“I did what you asked me to do,” you told him, turning to blink at him expectantly. “No crab, no broccoli. Were your chicken nuggets not up to snuff?”

Red spots bloomed on Pietro’s cheeks. He knew he was being made fun of. “The chicken was not the problem,” he bit out quietly.

The rest of the team was still eating dinner out in the dining area beyond the kitchen. The softshell crab was, of course, a smashing success. 

“I hope you don’t mind that I added some extra protein. I know that metabolism of yours burns right through it.” 

Pietro ground his teeth, but before he could say anything, Natasha stepped into the kitchen area to grab another lemon slice and butted in on the conversation. “What’s your damage, Speedy?” she asked.

You answered in his stead, “I’m not sure, Nat. I made a whole dinner special for him and here he is complaining.” All the while, you kept your eyes on the candy thermometer in the custard. It wouldn’t do to let the eggs scramble.

“You put the ketchup in smiley faces on my chicken!” Pietro exploded. “And little hot dogs cut like… like octopuses!”

“It’s octopi,” you corrected calmly, testing the lemon custard with a spoon, satisfied by the way it coated the metal. Licking the spoon for a final taste test, you smacked your lips in contentment and flipped the burner off. 

In the distance, you could hear Tony and the others cracking up at the main dining table. Had Pietro’s date laughed? You hoped she’d laughed. You’d used a piping bag and everything to get the ketchup designs right. 

While you carefully folded whipped egg whites into your custardy base, Pietro kept ranting.

“I’m going to get you for this,” he swore with a threatening finger pointed in your direction. 

“A man who’s scared of broccoli doesn’t scare me.” Gracefully, you poured the finished soufflé batter into individual ramekins and walked the tray to the oven with care. “Dessert in fifteen,” you informed Pietro sunnily. You were not to be fucked with, you thought with no small amount of smugness. 

You smiled the rest of the evening. You smiled over your perfect lemon soufflé. You smiled on your commute home. You probably even smiled in your sleep… 

… which was nice since it would turn out to be the last sleep you would get for nearly four days.


	3. Chapter 3

_Garlic ginger shrimp stir fry with shirataki noodles, fresno chilies, and herb salad._

Oh, sleep. Sleep was like an ex you still had to work with. She was bitter and elusive now, teaching you not to rely on her. She’d be assigned to help you and leave you to fend for yourself. But when the professional situation was dire, when the evasiveness had gone on long enough and your jobs were on the line, you felt deeply that she wasn’t petty enough to be spiteful even then.

So naive.

After the week you were having, you’d been convinced you could make it through the night without needing a sleeping pill. If you only waited it out, sleep would come for you. You knew you had a lot to get done the next day and you didn’t want to be sleeping pill groggy-depressed if there was a chance you could get some rest the old fashioned way. And you would… you definitely would. 

Any minute now.

After two hours of staring at your bedroom ceiling, you ambled into your kitchen at 3 AM and started prepping a bulk batch of brown-and-serve rolls on autopilot, hoping the sound of the mixer wouldn’t wake your mother. It was a bittersweet accomplishment: having a freezer full of potato rolls was guaranteed to make your life easier, but the same could not be said about going three days without sleep. 

At sun-up, you left some fresh rolls on the counter for your mom and went downstairs to meet the car FRIDAY sent for you. Tony had insisted on covering your transportation and you weren’t inclined to argue. You just hoped your mother hadn’t noticed the sleek black vehicles picking you up most days or that, if she had, she’d assumed they were from some wealthy client or another. She didn’t need to know you were working with S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Besides, it was just for now.

Wrapped in your soft, oversized knit, you pressed your cheek against the cool glass of the sedan’s window watching New York blur past your unfocused eyes. Insomnia hadn’t been an acquaintance of yours up until things went to shit a few years ago. You and insomnia knew each other pretty well now, though. The kind of familiarity that let you know each other’s habits and finish each other’s sentences. Or rather, you could finish insomnia’s sentences and it could finish, well, you. Its visits tended to follow a predictable pattern:

Day One without sleep was normal, of course. Better than your average day since it, by definition, followed a restful night. 

Day Two usually started fine. After twenty-four sleepless hours, it started to show physically: heavy, dark-rimmed eyes, slumped posture, the occasional tremor if you’d been leaning on caffeine for help. But you could do most anything you could do on Day One.

Coming up on Day Three was where the fun began, normally somewhere after forty hours without rest. Hallucinations, clumsiness, blank spots in your memory, disorientation, irritability, and a worrying tendency towards accidental honesty and oversharing. 

Sixty hours was where you drew the line. Like it or not, that was a situation that called for pharmaceutical help. It was a different kind of rest; you couldn’t remember your dreams with perfect clarity like you usually could and that was a uncomfortable sensation for you, like blacking out. But you’d get a long, long rest, and then suffer through the sleeping pill hangover for the next few days. It wasn’t a normal physical response to sleeping medications, but that was simply how your body worked. Sleeping pills left you out of whack, with mood swings and depressive episodes. It was like your body just wasn’t built to weather them. 

Currently, you were on hour fifty-six and you were struggling. Technically, you were still only on Day Three, you reminded yourself. You could handle Day Three. “I eat Day Three’s for breakfast,” you mumbled to yourself in encouragement.

“What?”

You tried to spin and face the newcomer in the kitchen, but you overshot the maneuver a little and wobbled with the effort of staying upright, gripping the sink for support. “Nothing,” you told Pietro. Stray garlic peels floated to the floor from your whirling. How long had you been here, peeling garlic at the sink in a total daze?

“Everything is… okay?” Pietro ventured, his unmistakable voice hesitant.

You tossed him a hazy glance and dismissively mumbled, “Yeah, of course.” You had mostly gotten over your annoyance over Pietro nearly losing your most precious family heirloom whilst whacked out on Norse liquor, but the two of you hardly ever spoke outside the kitchen. You weren’t buddies. 

He looked well-rested, you noted with envy, even though he’d apparently just finished a run. His activewear clung to his torso, the cool grey color he favored just a little damp. Being on hour fifty-six meant your reflexes were a little slow and apparently you weren’t quick enough to glance away from Pietro’s impressive physique, if his smug grin had anything to say about it. 

“Then why are you saving the garlic peels and tossing the garlic down the sink?”

You blinked down at your handiwork to find that you had indeed been wasting the past ten minutes doing exactly that. Dammit. You needed _sleep._ Heaving a frustrated sigh at the ceiling, you tipped the bowl of useless garlic peels into the trash. When you turned around to give Pietro a reluctant thank you for pointing it out, he was already gone. Typical. 

That night, while the team continued to eat and you worked on gathering up the remaining shrimp shells to throw away, Wanda approached you. 

You gave her a tired grin. “There’s an extra pint of the peanut bourbon ice cream in Bruce’s sample freezer,” you confided in an undertone. Bruce wasn’t crazy about you tampering with his freezer full of blood, plasma, and god knows what else, but he allowed it because you both knew it was the only place ice cream would be safe from Thor. 

“That is not what I intended to talk to you about,” she smiled indulgently before cocking her head and pausing. “Though that is good to know…”

“Oh. Then what’s up?”

“I heard you were in need of some rest. Your powers do not work on yourself, yes?”

“Well, no, but I’ll survive.” You tried to give her a reassuring smile but she didn’t look reassured. Probably because in your distraction, you’d begun sweeping shrimp scraps onto the floor instead of into the trash. Off-balance and wobbling, you attempted to pick up your mess, but Wanda snagged you by the elbow with a forceful grip and began marching you out of the kitchen.

“But the mess,” you protested. 

“Leave it,” she insisted. In the hallway, she picked something out of your messy day-old topknot. When she cast it aside, you noticed it was ginger peel. “I have a certain degree of influence over the mind. I think I can help you sleep.”

“That’s kind of you but—”

“No but. You are going to take a bath in one of Stark’s ridiculous bathrooms and then you are going to get at least ten hours of sleep. Please do not fight me on this.”

Honestly, you were too tired to fight her. Which was really a testament to Wanda’s reasoning as much as anything else. Usually once you passed fifty hours without sleep, events started to blur together and tonight was no exception. One moment, you were in the hallway with Wanda and then you were in a tub that smelled like lavender and then you were scrubbing your face with a towel as soft as a cloud and then you were putting on sweatpants—who knows whose. 

“Come on, Sleepy,” Wanda tugged you out of the bathroom. You smiled to yourself at the nickname, the first time she’d ever used it. Who knows? Maybe you’d be friends.

“Why’re you being so nice?”

“Am I not nice usually?” Wanda teased you.

“No. I mean yes, but—”

“Hush, Bea. You take care of us, we will take care of you. We are Avengers.”

You snorted, loopy and once again unsure where you were. A room you’d never been in, it looked like. Muzzily, you wondered what became of your old room in Avengers Tower. “I’m not a ‘venger.”

“Okay, Bea,” she said in a quelling voice. “Come on, bedtime.”

“M’hair’s wet, though.” 

A gentle shove at your back pushed you towards the mattress anyways. Well, fine then. You collapsed on top of the bedspread, boneless. 

Belatedly, you realized, “This is your room, isn’t it? Where will you sleep?”

“I will manage,” Wanda said frankly. “We hardly have a shortage of beds. I’m going to read here for a while. See if you can get some rest, Bea.” She sat next to where you were lying, propped up against the headboard with a paperback.

“Mmkay,” you yawned again, skeptical but willing to play along. You weren’t certain you would manage to… _oh._ Oh, that was lovely. 

*

No matter how high you climbed, you couldn’t get a proper aerial view of the town below. How frustrating. It was like the ground was climbing up towards you, too; like you were racing with each other. You grabbed at the beanstalk’s leaves and started hoisting yourself up again with renewed vigor. 

Up and up and up, until you broke through the cloud cover. Peering around this kingdom in the sky, you nearly fell off the beanstalk when a huge figure came stomping in your direction. The Hulk came within smashing range of you, but he and his companion—was that Clifford the Big Red Dog?—stopped and turned around when they heard someone playing music. Nick Fury was playing the harp, but it didn’t sound like a harp. It sounded like a drum being pounded, or like a knock on a bedroom door. 

You reached for an arrow from your quiver while they were distracted, just in case that giant dog got any ideas, but a new arrival interrupted you. Some 80s cartoon robot you didn’t recognize came stomping forward. His heavy footfalls also sounded like knocks on a bedroom door. 

“Wanda?” the robot said.

“Wanda, _esti treaz?”_

Someone was touching your arm. You groaned in confusion and pulled the covers down from around your head. “Wha?”

Something that sounded like a curse word hit your ears and the room got bright all at once.

“Bea?” Another foreign curse word. “So sorry, I thought you were my sister.”

“Happens all the time,” you mumbled nonsensically while knuckling your eyes, still half-asleep.

What the hell was all that beanstalk stuff? See, this was why you didn’t nap in Avengers Tower. Sharing someone else’s dreams was confusing and invasive, and you had no control over it. That scatterbrained beanstalk adventure had to be one of Clint’s. Welp, one of the team’s dreams was better than one of the team’s nightmares. 

“Sorry,” Pietro was repeating at your bedside. “So sorry.” He looked genuinely distraught over waking you. Judging from his messy silver hair, rumpled t-shirt, and sweatpants, he’d just gotten out of bed himself. 

“‘M not sure where Wanda is, sorry.” Your hair, wavy and unkempt from being slept on wet, fell slightly into your eyes, blocking the light.

“That is okay, Bea, go back to sleep.”

“Can’t,” you complained out of habit, though you were two-thirds of the way there already, “Clint’s dreaming too loud.”

Pietro tilted his head. “You are strange, you know that?”

“Pot, kettle,” you mumbled into the pillow, beginning to drift off.

“See? You say words at random now. What goes on in your head?”

“Iunno,” you garbled, ambivalent, then smacked your lips. “Night night sleep tight.” And you were out like a light.

*

_Yeast-raised cinnamon banana pancakes with bacon, berries, green smoothies, and greek yogurt._

Eleven. It was eleven AM when you woke up. That meant nearly fourteen hours of sleep. Stretching out after fourteen hours of sleep was basically shaking the cobwebs off death. You felt resurrected.

A well-rested Beatrice was a different Beatrice altogether. You were whistling and basking in the midday sunshine that poured into the kitchen area. Your mind felt clear for the first time in weeks. No sleeping pill hangover, either. You finally felt like _yourself_ again.

“I thought I was hallucinating this smell,” said Steve as he strolled in fresh from training, a sweat towel slung round his neck. 

“If you’re dreaming, I am too, Cap,” said Sam. He lowered his voice conspiratorially, “And if she asks, we skipped breakfast.”

You let it slide and pretended you hadn’t heard that. After fixing them plates, your attention was on the coffeemaker when Pietro made his sleepy, befuddled entrance.

Pietro Maximoff’s bedhead was truly something to behold. It was so… fluffy. Honestly, it was a testament to his bone structure that he was pulling it off. From the way he stumbled into the kitchen blearily, you’d never know that the guy was capable of super speed. One hand smoothed out the pillow creases from his cheek and his other pushed up the hem of his t-shirt to scratch at his stomach. You tried not to stare. You tried not to notice that he was an outie. You tried not to notice the dark trail of hair under his belly button. You failed. F, F, F. 

_Eff,_ you thought.

He was halfway through pouring himself a glass of OJ before he even realized there were other people in the room. And when he did, he simply blinked a few extra times, rasped something that may have been a greeting, and caught himself from overflowing his juice glass at the last moment. Geez, what was wrong with him? You wondered whether he’d found Wanda last night. Actually, come to think of it, you didn’t know why he’d been looking for her in the middle of the night in the first place.

You slid off your stool and sprayed down the skillet. “Want some pancakes?”

Pietro looked up at you from his juice, eyes veiled by messy bangs, with an expression far too serious for the topic at hand. He nodded solemnly as though he’d just agreed to trade his soul. 

“Have a seat, I’ll have a stack for you soon.” In the meantime, you piled some bacon from earlier onto a plate for him and slid it across the counter. You were starting to learn that when his stubble developed that hollow look to it or his skin seemed extra pale, Pietro usually just needed food. Yes, the two of you bickered, and yes, Pietro was typically more of a handful when he was well-fed, but you had a nurturing streak a mile wide, especially for the beleaguered. You weren’t gonna let him suffer. Besides, you felt great this morning and you were inclined to spread the joy.

That was how you ended up using roughly half of the massive bowl of batter resting in the fridge to make Pietro’s massive stack of pancakes. You stopped when the stack was almost as tall as your hand, still unsure whether it would be enough. You’d seen the boy eat.

“Bless you,” Pietro rasped, sleep and accent still thick in his voice. He proceeded to attack his brunch like a wolf. 

Sam paused from his conversation with Steve to eye Pietro’s progress, giving an impressed whistle. Sam looked to you and jabbed a thumb in Pietro’s direction. “I wasn’t that bad a minute ago, was I?” When you had to pause to think it over, Sam forestalled your response by shaking his head fervently. “No, nope, I don’t wanna know.”

It was nice just idly chatting with Steve and Sam, nibbling on some bacon, enjoying a coffee because you wanted one and not because you needed it, while Pietro ate wordlessly on the sidelines. 

When he finally broke for air, the corner of his mouth shiny with syrup, you tilted your head at him. “Trouble sleeping, huh?”

It took a moment for Pietro to realize it was him you were addressing. He shrugged noncommittally, but you could tell the food was starting to perk him up. His color was returning.

“You’ve got some, uh,” you gestured at the corner of your own lips and mimicked wiping there.

Pietro blinked, licking and wiping at the corner of his mouth with a somewhat embarrassed air about him. 

That was enough time spent on him for today, you thought, and left him to his food. He had three or so pancakes left, but you knew from experience that it would be no trouble for him to polish those off. You busied yourself fixing a green smoothie for Natasha when she came by the kitchen on her way to training and chatting with the two soldiers still seated at the counter. 

Then small talk with Bruce while you fixed a plate for him to take with him to the lab. True to form, Pietro was coming back to life as the comfort food hit his stomach. He was beginning to fidget and make little comments. You were in the middle of fixing a smoothie for Bruce, a coffee for yourself, and another rasher of bacon for Steve (that he was too polite to ask for but obviously wanted), so you were a little too busy to entertain Pietro. Apparently he took this as a challenge. 

“Can I have a coffee, too, Bea?” he asked with an angelic grin, just as you finished pouring your own.

“No,” said Steve quickly and firmly, much to your relief. Steve turned his attention away from his bacon (which Sam took immediate advantage of), looked you in the eye, and pointed at Pietro. “For future reference, this guy doesn’t get coffee, understood? You do not need to see him on caffeine.”

“You won’t be _able_ to see him on caffeine,” Sam snorted in agreement.

You gave Steve a little salute, shrugging a good-natured ‘what can you do?’ to Pietro, who simply scowled.

Next, he spilled his orange juice. With his reflexes and abilities, you had a hard time believing Pietro could spill like that on accident, but you didn’t hesitate to wipe up the mess. Maybe on a day when you weren’t as rested or content, you would’ve let it piss you off, but not today. In fact, you hummed as you worked, to the tune of ‘A Spoonful Of Sugar,’ which for some reason made Sam fidget.

Pietro was not impressed by your good mood. He continued making the usual jabs to rile you up—questioning your future menu choices, waxing poetic about how ‘industrial, processed’ American cooking could never measure up to Sokovian masterpieces, asking for the English word for things he _clearly_ already knew how to say—but it wouldn’t work today.

“And what is this one?” Pietro pointed at the intricate blown glass vessel on display by Tony’s wine collection. If he had noticed that you were trying to focus on whipping cream to go with the assortment of berries you found in the fridge, he certainly didn’t let it stop him from bothering you. 

“That’s a decanter,” you told him easily, tilting your bowl so the mixer wouldn’t slosh the heavy cream over its rim.

“And this?”

“Sieve. Specifically, a chinoise. But most people would just say ‘sieve.’”

“And this?” Pietro was getting frustrated by your complete lack of agitation, you could tell. He was barely even trying to pick things he might plausibly not know the word for anymore. 

You simply smiled at him, beatific if a little distracted, as though you were talking to a kindergartener and said, “That’s a kettle.” He knew it was a kettle, you knew he knew it was a kettle, and now he knew that you knew that he damn well knew it was called a ‘kettle.’ Unbothered, you blithely went about your business, softly humming another tune.

At last, Pietro broke. He squinted at you with suspicion and snapped, “Why are you being this way?”

You blinked, only half paying attention since you were busy monitoring the whipped cream’s progress. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said. “But you are acting weird.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said easily. “Do you want the rest of the berries?” You wanted to be able to go ahead and clean that bowl.

“...Yes,” Pietro said cautiously. You spooned them onto his plate and retreated to the sink. You caught Pietro eyeing the berries for signs of poison, but then when Sam made to stab at them with his fork, Pietro quickly pulled his plate inward with a possessive scowl. 

“Sleepy’s always like this,” Clint said, once again making you jump. You twisted around until you spotted him happily perched on the second level. His legs swung back and forth over the edge of the balcony. You hadn’t seen Clint all morning, but he had a half-eaten piece of bacon in his hand so clearly he’d stolen in behind your back. “Or you used to be. When you weren’t so sleepy, that is.”

Pietro gave Clint a dubious look from the lower level of the living space. “When Sleepy is not sleepy?”

Clint mulled this conundrum over. “Hm. I guess when Sleepy isn’t sleepy, she’s…”

“Happy?” Steve supplied. 

From his bitten back grin of amusement, you knew the reference Steve was making. With a good-natured roll of your eyes, you said, “C’mon, I know I’m short, but do all my nicknames have to be dwarves?”

“Ah!” Pietro snapped with recognition, delighted to be in on the joke. _"Cei sapte pitici!_ I know these!” He clapped Steve on the back heartily to show his approval.

You fought back a charmed chuckle watching the two bond over a shared pop culture reference. Other than Thor, they were the most lost-in-translation, so of course it took a movie released in 1937 AD to bring them together.

“Sleepy is not Sleepy, I think,” Pietro tsked. “She is _Morocănosul._ How do you say that one?” He whipped his phone out and typed in that disorientingly fast way he did everything before grinning. “Grumpy!” he announced with pride. 

“Only with you, kid,” Steve snorted at Pietro. “She’s only Grumpy with you.” He patted your shoulder as he passed by, depositing his dishes in the sink. 

“A pleasure as always to see you, _Happy,”_ Steve said warmly. “Thank you for breakfast.”

Up close and lit by midday sunshine, Steve almost hurt your eyes. He was like a walking Leyendecker portrait glowing with Norman Rockwell wholesomeness. It was a supreme relief to be used to living with Captain America and not awestruck like you’d been in the beginning. You grinned sunnily. “You’re welcome.”

Half-heartedly making the case that there was already a Happy working for Tony Stark, Sam followed Steve out, presumably to hit the showers. That left Pietro seated alone at the kitchen island staring at you oddly. 

“What?” you said lightly, lathering up the sponge for the next round of plates.

“What?” Pietro volleyed back, defensive. 

“Christ,” Clint muttered to himself upstairs and disappeared from sight once more.

It was quiet for a minute as you washed your tools.

“You are very different with sleep,” Pietro told you, though he had already said something to that effect a minute ago.

“Thank you for asking Wanda to help me.” It had to have been him who told her last night, probably after he caught you tossing garlic down the kitchen sink. You weren’t stupid.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Pietro inspected his nails, looking bored. 

“Uh huh,” you smiled at him, unconvinced. 

He squirmed under your attention and said, “Maybe she would not have done it if she knew you would be so… so _bubbly_ in the morning.” He spat the word ‘bubbly’ like it was a curse.

“What is so wrong with being in a good mood? Do you _want_ me to bully you?” you teased. “Is that it?”

His eyes lit up and he leaned forward onto the counter flirtatiously like he just couldn’t help himself. “My safeword is ‘decanter,’ _printsessa._ ”

You snorted into your mug of coffee. “You’re horrible.”

He opened his mouth with a question on his tongue, but you never got to hear it since Wanda chose that moment to stride in with Vision at her heels. You had a good idea whose room she found to stay the night in. 

You whipped up a couple of pancakes for her, making sure to plate them beautifully with the whipped cream as a thank you for the blissful night of rest she’d given you.

“I’m surprised there’s any left, eating after this one,” Wanda nodded her head to the side to indicate her twin. 

“Eh,” you downplayed your accomplishment like feeding Pietro was child’s play. “I know how to handle’im.” 

Wanda eyed Pietro meaningfully over her breakfast, looking as though your words had deeply amused her. Then she frowned as she inspected Pietro’s appearance. “Did you not sleep, Piet?”

“I looked for you in the night, but,” he gave a distinctly Continental shrug-and-trail-off to punctuate his sentence. “You were occupied.”

They held a wordless conversation amongst themselves, as many twins often appeared to do but as only _these_ twins actually could. Feeling oddly left out, you puttered around behind the kitchen counter. At length, Wanda made a frustrated noise.

“Perhaps you might consult Miss Dorsey, if it’s not too bold of me to suggest,” Vision said to Pietro in JARVIS’ voice. That was going to take some getting used to. “She has a unique insight on the topic of dreams and nightmares. Your preoccupation with Novi Grad—”

“It _is_ too bold of you to suggest,” Pietro told Vision bluntly. “My dreams are my business.”

“Apologies.”

Wanda sighed and counted off her fingers. “You won’t get help for the nightmares, Bea won’t let me help more with sleeping, Thor refuses all help with his phone. This team has issues.” She sawed at her last pancake a tad violently.

Pietro’s face scrunched up. “What do you mean she won’t let you help more? Have you asked her?”

“I don’t have to. She will refuse,” Wanda said confidently, as if you weren’t in the room.

“What? Why would she say no?” Pietro frowned. He turned to face you, muscles lightning quick and ever disorienting. “Why would you say no?”

Wanda huffed and, to your shock, answered in your stead. “Because she is unwilling to be dependent on this team and lifestyle a second time. She believes self-reliance will protect her from future pain and loss.”

You choked. “Wow, Wanda,” you managed to say before she could blurt more of your innermost insecurities. “I see how you and Vision are a match, now.”

Her eyes snapped to yours, slightly tinted with concern and remorse. “Too bold?”

You grimaced a silent ‘yes.’ How much had she already seen in your mind?

“I will do better,” she promised with remorse. “I try not to pry, but your feelings on this subject were loud when I was putting you to sleep. Still, they are not mine to share nor to correct. I am… readjusting to having friends.”

While you were still unsettled, you appreciated that she was repaying your involuntary vulnerability with some vulnerability of her own. 

“But that is ridiculous!” Pietro was squinting. “Of course you should have help to sleep. You _need_ sleep.”

“There are other ways.” You hadn’t given up hope on finding a real solution. As long as you were patient and kept looking for the exact right fix, you would be rewarded in the end. You knew it. Patience. 

“But there is this way,” he insisted.

Oh, the hypocrisy. “Okay, then tell me all about your nightmares, big guy.”

He grumbled at you, your point grudgingly taken. 

*

_Burrata flatbread with marinated tomatoes and citrus vanilla bean cheesecake._

“Crazy weather we are having,” Pietro commented, scaring the bejesus out of you. In spite of your warnings about giving him a one-way ticket to dreamland if he startled you, it was emerging as a habit of his.

“Jesus!” As your heart rate returned to normal, you eyed him speculatively. “What are you doing in here? Isn’t your date still on the terrace?” She had better be there, you were still prepping their desserts.

“I thought I would catch up with Bea, maybe see if I could assist with anything,” Pietro explained as if that were perfectly normal behavior for him.

You rolled your eyes to yourself as you rinsed your hands off at the sink. In the kitchen, ‘Can I help you with anything?’ was code for ‘Hurry the fuck up in there.’ 

“What did we say about you rushing me?” You had Pietro on a three-strike system and he only had one strike left. 

“No, I’m not rushing you! I am only here for being helpful.” He gave you an earnest, innocent look, rocking back on his heels. The wide eyes were overselling it. 

You knew he wasn’t here to see you. The only time Pietro paid you any mind when you were in the building was to annoy you. So he wasn’t here to see you, he wasn’t here to rush you because of hunger (which you were only inclined to believe because he’d yet to poach any food from the counter), and he certainly wasn’t here to help… 

“Date’s going that bad, huh?” you grinned, reaching for the zester and a meyer lemon. 

Immediately, Pietro exploded, “She believes the earth is not round! Flat! She thinks it is totally flat!”

“That’s a shame,” you yawned. “She’s got killer legs.” You were currently about forty hours without sleep, not dangerously loopy but perhaps a little less filtered than usual.

He nodded forlornly before he remembered who he was talking to, shooting you a belated look of surprise and suspicion. What? You had eyes. You had eyes and Pietro’s flat-earther date had legs. For days. It was an objective fact. Like the earth being round.

“Would you tell her I had to go save babies from a sudden fire?”

“I’m not doing your dirty work.”

He huffed like you were being incredibly unreasonable. “Fine, I will just suffer.”

You scattered the lemon zest artfully over the two dessert plates before pushing them across the counter to Pietro. “At least you’ll suffer with cheesecake.”

“ _Fără inimă._ ” Pietro shook his head at your indifferent behavior. “You are heartless.”

“Have fun!” you called after him with a smile. It was nice to know karma was real.

*

“Good day at work, sweets?” you mother asked from the couch when you came home still bubbly. She still thought you were private cheffing for families. She wouldn’t like the truth.

“Yeah,” you responded, your bubbliness going a bit flat from the guilt of lying to her. 

She never let go of what happened last time you worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., and she hadn’t liked the nature of your job even before you got injured. Even before… everything went down. Your eyes strayed to the empty armchair by the couch before you forced yourself to focus back on your mom instead. It was a relief to see her so relaxed. Secretly, you always wondered whether a little part of her was relieved the day you were declared unfit for working in the field. Like losing your powers was a silver lining from all the awful things that happened that day both of your lives collapsed. Relieved because you were safer now, even though the shift threw your entire understanding of your life’s purpose out of whack. Ever since then, you were adrift. 

Instead of hanging your keys by the door, you kept them in your bag. Your mom wouldn’t recognize the key fob for the elevators in Tony’s building, but there was no reason to risk it. It wasn’t forever, you reminded yourself. Just until you had enough money saved up. Moving out would benefit both of you in the long run. You were doing this for her, too. 

The keyring jangled and thunked against a tupperware lid in your bag. “I’ve got some leftovers for you if you haven’t eaten yet, Mom.”

“Oh, my hero!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally know nothing about the Avengers, but I also know nothing about self control. This is all Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s fault.
> 
> Translations:  
>  _Esti treaz?_ \- Are you awake?  
>  _Cei sapte pitici!_ \- The seven dwarves!  
>  _Morocănosul_ \- Grumpy  
>  _fără inimă_ \- heartless


	4. Chapter 4

_Spicy mushroom ravioli in a boozy whiskey cream sauce with grilled chicken, spring peas, and a magazine-worthy platter of garlic roasted fiddlehead ferns._

“Are you always so slow?”

You jumped, nearly knocking the dough off the counter as Pietro’s voice drifted over your shoulder without any prior warning. How long had he been in the kitchen? You thought you were alone. Normally your instincts were better than this, but you were exhausted and it took all your focus just to knead properly. You just hoped you hadn’t been singing or anything when he entered the kitchen. You tended to do that when you weren’t paying attention. Your mom called it the Disney princess in you.

In a show of obstinance, you made yourself continue kneading the the pasta dough at the same glacial pace, push after heaving push with the heels of your hands. Your slowness wasn’t a special technique or anything, you were just too tired to go faster. Each laborious thrust was like the slow nodding off of someone half-awake before they snapped back up again. You were practically sleepwalking.

Pietro just carried on observing you over your shoulder.

“I certainly don’t go faster when I’m being pestered,” you grumbled when it became clear he wasn’t leaving. 

“Surely there is a machine to do this,” he protested, undaunted. 

“Don’t think Vision was given life to be my sous chef.”

Pietro rolled his eyes—you couldn’t see him because you refused to give him the satisfaction of looking over your shoulder, but you just knew he did. “You know what I meant.”

“Tony vivisected the kitchenaid to make some kind of prototype.”

“Kitchenaid?”

You snorted, weirdly charmed by the fact that he needed an explanation for ‘kitchenaid’ and not ‘vivisected.’ “The mixer appliance,” you explained, at last glancing up at him over your shoulder and through your lashes. 

He nodded slowly in recognition. 

“Besides, my grandma says hard work makes it taste better,” you said, turning back around to bully the pasta dough some more. It wasn’t nearly elastic enough.

“Like your precious, ridiculous twelve year cookies?”

“Twelve _hour_ cookies. Don’t knock it. You’ve had them, you know it’s worth the work. The wait makes them taste better,” you reiterated.

“My mother said something similar,” he said with a peculiar, distant quality to his voice. You knew the Maximoffs’ history but that didn’t mean you knew what to say. Luckily, he piped up again, “However, I think you have punished this one enough.”

You scoffed. Whatever would you do without Pietro Maximoff to tell you how to do your job? “Thanks for the tip. It needs to develop twice as much gluten before it’s ready.”

“Really?”

“Really.” You wiped the back of a floury hand across your tired brow. 

Suddenly, Pietro made a startled noise and shot his arm out in front of you to point off to your far left. “Wow wow, what in the world is that?!” 

You squinted in the direction he was pointing to find the living room exactly as it was before. Beyond the windows, nothing appeared out of the ordinary in New York City. No flying aliens, robot armies, or emergent invasions by mole people. When you turned back to Pietro for an explanation, he was an incomprehensible blur by your side. The floury air stirred up from his furious motion made your eyes water, and by the time you blinked them clear, he was gone entirely. 

Wow. You really fell for that.

It was pointless to glance around the massive open area looking for him, he was long gone, but you did it out of reflex anyways. Where he’d been standing just a millisecond ago, all that remained was your wide bowl of dough on the counter, a foot away from where it sat the moment before. 

Cautiously, you gave the dough an exploratory pinch and pull. Heavens. Gluten strands as resilient as Deadpool. This pasta dough was ready for action. 

Well what do you know.

“I’m not making you Aunt Silvie’s Twelve Hour Cookies,” you said without preamble when you noticed Pietro loitering by the entrance to the kitchen a couple of days later.

“Excuse me?” Pietro responded.

“You heard me. So if that’s why you’ve been trying to kiss up, you can stop now because it’s not going to work.” You’d given it a lot of thought and that was the only explanation you could come up with for him helping you out of the blue. 

“Ah, this is about the pasta dough.”

“I mean it. Don’t bother.” 

“Most people would say thank you. It is not so difficult.” In a flash, Pietro was seated at the kitchen counter, chin propped up on one hand, lax amusement shining through every inch of his posture. 

You just eyed him silently.

_”‘Oh thank you, Pietro, you are so handsome and giving. How kind for you to use your huge muscles and amazing powers to help little old me. How can I ever repay you? Perhaps I massage your oiled muscles with my grateful little hands!’”_ he gushed in a soprano parody of your voice.

You raised a cool brow at him. “Lemme get this straight: You want me to tell you that you have huge muscles and offer to rub you down with oil?”

Unruffled, he drawled, “I’m only showing to you that polite behavior is an option.”

“Do you ever think about what you’re going to say before you say it?”

“This sounds boring. What is the point?”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s never backfired on you. So when’s the massage?”

Pietro choked on his water.

“My point exactly,” you concluded before he could catch his breath and respond. “I’m surprised Fury hasn’t put you through some kinda impulse control training.”

Voice still a little wheezy from water going down the wrong tube, Pietro said, “He would have to catch me first.”

You took a lingering glance at his face to make sure he really was finished choking, noting the dark circles around his eyes. He seemed to always have them in some form or another, but they were more pronounced than usual. “Do you need help sleeping? Is that why you helped with the ravioli?”

“It is very hard for you to believe I am altruistic, isn’t it? Though I am a superhero,” which was a fair point. “And how should you help with my sleep, ah, _somnorosule?_ Your powers are not functional. You cannot even make yourself sleep. Perhaps your massage helps me sleep?”

Ignoring the jab about the massage, you explained, “They’re different abilities. It’s also totally different to help someone that _wants_ to sleep fall asleep versus forcing someone unconscious. Way easier to do the first one; I can still usually manage that even now. Except on myself because that would be too convenient, I guess. I help Natasha out sometimes, Bruce too. I’d help you if you needed it, there’s no need to bribe me.”

“No bribing, _somnorosule._ I, like most handsome, traumatized men, have troubled sleep, but Wanda is able to fix this,” Pietro promised. “Maybe I helped you because I’m a nice guy, ah?”

“What does that mean?”

“Nice? I’m glad you asked, _fără inimă,_ it is when a person—”

“Quit being cute, I’m talking about that Sokovian word. It means ‘asshole,’ doesn’t it?”

He girnned wide. _“Somnorosule_ means sleepy. When I call you asshole, I will make sure you understand.”

“So you are polite after all,” you joked with a smirk. In spite of yourself, it made you feel tingly that he’d apparently started calling you a nickname in Sokovian.

“Always, _printsessa.”_

*

_Ginger-dressed salmon poke bowls and kettle corn two ways._

Wednesday night’s date must have been a special lady. Pietro came into the living area with his hair freshly cut and dyed. Natasha wolf-whistled at him from her perch on the counter where she was pretending not to steal spiced chickpeas from your prep bowl.

It was odd to see him like this. His hair was actually brushed and swept back. No dark roots. Even in the grungy desaturated peroxide shade Pietro favored, the look was more Steve Rogers than Quicksilver. 

“You’re not even wearing a tracksuit. Who’s the lucky lady?” Natasha popped another chickpea into her mouth, not the least bit deterred by your threatening looks. 

“Ha ha,” he pronounced, his half-lidded sarcasm ruining the strait-laced image his new ‘do afforded him. He was such a little punk. Well, you admitted to yourself after eyeing his well-fitted ensemble, perhaps not _little._

“She must be something. I hardly recognized you,” Natasha commented. 

Pietro protested being fussed over. “It’s not so different.” 

You shrugged, keeping your eyes resolutely on the onion you were chopping, and said, “I kind of liked it when it was a hot mess. It suited you.” 

Before Pietro could take your words as too much of an insult or too much of a compliment, Bruce strolled in and did a double-take at Pietro, effectively derailing the conversation. “What, is it picture day or something?”

Pietro, apparently having had his fill of teasing, threw up his hands and abandoned the living area with exasperated slowness. 

“You liked his hair before, huh?” Natasha drawled from the countertop. 

“Oh shut up,” you said to your onions. “You know what I meant.”

“I think I know exactly what you meant,” she said in a low voice only, for your ears only.

“I don’t like him,” you told Natasha firmly. Rolling your eyes was a mistake, though. The onion vapors stung horribly. 

“Alright, if you say so. There’s no need to _cry_ about it.” Another chickpea disappeared into her smug mouth with a satisfied _chomp._

“It’s the onions! You’re so mean.”

Where does he even get his hair done, you wondered. You’d noticed the length of his darker roots varied somewhat week to week in either direction, so regular maintenance must have been involved. 

“I do it for him,” came Wanda’s voice out of nowhere. 

“Ah!” You jumped. “You’ve _got_ to stop doing that, Wanda!” 

“Normally just a couple times a week, but he wanted to make an effort tonight,” she continued as if you’d said nothing. Was there something about the way they were raised that made the Maximoff twins think it was good behavior to constantly startle their peers without warning and then pretend not to hear their objections and questions? Was it a Sokovian custom? Because it was really getting old. 

“A couple times a week?” you snorted. How vain.

“Piet’s hair and nails grow quickly since… Enhancement. I have tried to keep up with his roots but it is impossible.” She gives you a long-suffering grin with a flash of something maternal in it. In a way, the Maximoffs had to raise each other since their parents’ death. “Nevertheless, he likes the color, so we make do. If I stop cutting his hair, it will reach his shoulders by the end of the month.”

You blinked, trying to imagine Pietro’s two-toned waves so long, like some foppish French noble. You bit your lip.

“It’s as silly as you imagine if he leaves the blond at the ends,” Wanda told you. 

Bruce narrowed his eyes, scientific interest mildly piqued. “His facial hair too?”

Wanda nodded. 

Bruce nodded slowly, absorbing the information. “That makes sense,” he said. And just when you expected him to follow the words up with something scientific, he finished, “The tracksuits plus the messy facial hair was way too stereotypically Eastern European. He’s just missing a gold chain. But if it’s out of his control…” Bruce trailed off when he caught on to Natasha and Wanda’s unamused frowns.

He glanced at you as if to ask for backup, and while you agreed that the tracksuits (though they tended to look implausibly stylish on Pietro) were hilariously stereotypical, this was not a battle you wanted to fight with the two most terrifying Eastern Europeans you knew.

You left your knife on the cutting board to raise your hands up innocently. “You’re on your own, Bruce.”

Dinner for Pietro and his possibly-an-instagram-model date was served in the home theatre Tony had one floor below this one. (Once you laid eyes on her, you totally understood why Pietro had decided to make a special effort with his appearance for his date tonight.) It was nice that someone was using the theatre, lord knew Tony never did. They were supposed to be watching a Nancy Meyers movie together for at least another hour and a half.

So there was no explanation for Pietro being in your kitchen right now, impeding your work. 

“Elise wanted popcorn,” he said. His dark roots were already beginning to peek through again.

“Check the pantry. I’m pretty sure there’s a few bags left.” You weren’t certain, though; the Avengers went through a lot of movie-theatre-butter-popcorn on a weekly basis. A truly shocking amount for people with zero percent body fat. 

“I was thinking maybe you could make a special fancy popcorn,” Pietro purred with a puckish grin. “To impress my date.”

Of course he would request this once you were almost completely done cleaning your workspace. You leaned your soapy forearms on the kitchen island to look him dead in the eyes. “You do this just to annoy me, don’t you?”

His grin only widened a bit, dimples popping out. He said nothing. Just challenged you with those sparkling, marble-clear eyes. 

You let your head loll back petulantly, accepting the fact that arguing with Pietro would expend more energy than making a stupid little bowl of kettle corn. “Gimme a minute. I’ll bring some down to you guys.”

Pietro lounged on one of the island stools. “I do not mind waiting,” he said easily—which had to be the biggest lie he’d told you yet.

You scoffed in disbelief, but put his presence out of your mind as you flitted around, formulating your popcorn plan and hunting down ingredients. With the oil heating up on the stove, you ground up some pink peppercorns into a mise en place bowl. (He _said_ ‘special fancy.’ In fact, if this turned out as well as you expected it to, you might have to permanently refer to the recipe as ‘Special Fancy Popcorn.’)

“Get me a few spears of rosemary from the balcony, would you?”

“Spears?” he frowned.

“Stems,” you clarified, miming the shape of a rosemary stalk with your hands for him. 

Nodding, he zipped out and back again. “Should I wash?”

You let him do as he liked, washing and chopping. It was nice to have an extra pair of hands in the kitchen. Pietro was surprisingly quiet as you worked. If you got distracted, you were going to burn the salted caramel you were reheating (it was leftover from the apple pie you made this afternoon and you’d been looking for a way to use it up). He eyed the pot of caramel with severe distrust as you brought it over to the popped corn you’d split into two bowls—pink pepper in one bowl, chopped rosemary in both.

“Trust me,” you told him, slowly drizzling the sauce into one of the bowls and giving it a stir. Pietro only wrinkled his nose. “You’re the one who wanted my special fancy version.”

He picked up a piece from the sweet bowl, eyeing it like he was holding a cyanide capsule before popping it into his mouth. “ _Dumnezeule,_ ” he breathed, eyes shut. “You bizarre little genius.”

“Caramel corn isn’t uncommon, you know.” 

“It is uncommon to me.”

“Welcome to America,” you shrugged. 

With his head bent over the popcorn bowl, you couldn’t help but take a closer look at his hair.

“Wow,” you breathed without meaning to. “Your roots are already growing in.” Less than a centimeter, but it was more than what had been there three hours ago. You had to snatch your hand back from trying to touch it, wondering how anyone’s hair could grow so quickly.

Pietro settled into a comfortable smirk as he glanced up you through some stray hairs that had fallen over his eyes. “Lucky for you, since you like my hair.”

“I didn’t say I liked your hair,” you snapped, trying and failing to keep down a blush.

“You did.”

“I just meant that it feels right when your hair is as dysfunctional and chaotic as you are. It’s like a warning label.”

Even after professing his love for this new snack, Pietro still looked like he wasn’t sure whether he should call the cops when he saw you take a piece of popcorn from the savory bowl and dip it into the caramel left on the sides of the pot, mixing pink pepper and caramel and rosemary into one bite. 

Brushing off his disgusted looks, you simply said, “Many geniuses are unappreciated in their time,” and set about fixing your ponytail in preparation to clean the kitchen. Again.

Pietro was still standing there when you turned back around. You frowned, “Better take those downstairs before it gets cold.”

“Right,” Pietro blinked. “Yes.”

You shut a silverware drawer with a swing of your hips on your way to the sink to wash your French rolling pin. It was still caked in pie dough from this afternoon. Halfway through the task, you peeked over your shoulder. Pietro hadn’t moved. 

“You’re missing the movie.”

He laughed faintly at that. “It’s not like I understand it anyways.”

“You don’t have subtitles?” You could find that sort of thing much more easily online these days. 

“The words I understand. Why the younger woman is enamored with Jack Nicholson, I do not.”

You laughed. “I can’t help you there. Now quit neglecting your date and get outta here.”

*

_Halibut en papillote with charred asparagus and hollandaise, meyer lemon bars for dessert._

It was only ten minutes into his latest date when Pietro had once again snuck himself into the kitchen. Was his attention span really so short that he could date three different girls a week and still be bored? No wonder one of his dates accused him of being A.D.D.

“What’s wrong with this one?” you cajoled, placing the baking sheet of fish into the oven and setting a timer. Almost done. Pietro and his date were your last task of the night, everyone else had eaten an hour ago.

“She chews with her mouth open,” Pietro stated with a defensive primness. 

You squinted in open disbelief. “So do you!” Pietro attacked his food with the vigor and passion of a starved tiger every single time.

His face twisted up but he recovered quickly. “Well I don’t have to watch myself eat.”

“You’re so picky. This one’s too hot, this one’s too cold, this one sneezes too loud—”

“Hey!” Pietro interrupted, pointing a finger at you for emphasis. “I have never complained about my date being too hot.” You both knew he couldn’t dispute the other two.

“Okay, Goldilocks,” you snorted to yourself. It was a testament to your current level of brain function that you found your own lame joke so funny.

“My hair is not gold,” Pietro frowned in confusion. The corners of his mouth always turned down into his stubble in this particular way when he was being laughed at. He probably wasn’t aware of it and it was indisputably adorable. 

You batted his confusion away with a sleepy hand. “It’s a children’s story. Fable. Thing. Never mind, too much to explain.” Tired as you were, it took a few tries for you to get the tongs open and stir the asparagus around.

He watched you for a silent moment, then declared, “Wanda will help you to sleep again tonight.” 

“Psssh, quit being dramatic. She’s got better things to do. ‘N I didn’t bring clothes. _And_ I’m fine. So no need.” You took your cutting board and knife to the sink to hose them off.

“Why are you stubborn this way?” 

“I’m fully capable of handling it myself.” 

Like Wanda said, it was important for you to feel self-sufficient. When your window of time with the Avengers closed the first time, everything about your life, livelihood, support system, and cosmic purpose was shaken up and displaced. If you did things on your own terms, you would never be so blindsided again in the future. Okay, yeah, you were edging close to dangerously exhausted, but if you hit hour sixty, you’d take a sleeping pill.

He leaned across the counter towards you, and, wow, he actually looked kinda concerned. “What will it take for you to agree, Sleepy?”

He pronounced the nickname the same way his sister did. ‘Zlippy.’ It was stupidly endearing and never failed to bring a little smile to your face.

He rubbed his hands together in thought. “Should we, ah, strike a bargain? I must warn you, I learned many good phrases from the mafia movies.”

Yeah, you were pretty sure Pietro had watched _Goodfellas_ at least three times in the last month. “I don’t have a reason to compromise with you, Pietro. You have no leverage.”

His eyes twinkled with good humor. “I will make an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Okay, what.”

He sucked in his lips for a millisecond, just long enough to give you the hint that he hadn’t figured it out before proposing the deal. “I will owe you a favor—and before you say no, remember my set of skills,” his image flickered for half a second and when he returned, he was holding one of Clint’s bows with a smug tilt to his lips.

The offer was worth mulling over. Staying the night wouldn’t be such a hardship. Good rest and a night out of the house didn’t sound bad at all, despite your reservations. You loved your mother but your dreamsharing was becoming more and more common over the past year, and your mother tended to dream of your dad. Sometimes it would just be your mom and dad grocery shopping together, but no matter the content, you’d wake up from those dreams anguished and guilty and feeling more tired than when you went to bed. And those were just during the rare times you did manage to reach REM sleep.

“A favor,” you let the word roll around in your mouth sleepily, waiting to see how it tasted. “No questions asked?” 

“Anything I am able to do. Hush-hush on the down low. At the _printsessa_ ’s discretion,” he agreed. 

“What if I asked for a weapon of mass destruction?”

He leaned in with a dangerous, smoky look in his eye. “Then I would give you me.”

You rolled your bloodshot eyes wondering when his well of empty flirtation would run dry. “What if I asked you to leave me alone?” you ventured with a challenging smirk.

“Ah,” Pietro’s dark stubble tilted with the knowing, lopsided grin that overtook his face. “I said anything I am _able_ to do, _somnorosule.”_

“Three favors.”

He scoffed, wounded. “Do you realize the value of the thing I am offering you?! The governments who would kill for such a favor?”

Unfazed and deadpan, you amended your price. “Four.”

His eyes and nostrils flared at your provocation before letting out an exhale, deliberately slow, through his nose. “I don’t know why I like you.”

You shrugged with tired, heavy shoulders. “No skin off my neck if you don’t wanna make a deal.”

“Skin off your neck?” he parroted with confusion and not a little disgust. 

“The English language isn’t my fault, Pietro.”

“One favor.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“Deal.”

His face was graced by a winning smile before it compressed with narrow-eyed suspicion at your speedy acquiescence. When you said nothing further, he forced himself into cheer. “Very well! Off you go! Bedtime.”

“What, _now?_ ” you protested. Dinner was still in the oven.

“Deal is a deal! Now get in the bed!”

“What the _hell_ is going on here?” A quite tall, quite pretty (or perhaps just blurry—you were very tired) redhead made her entrance with her jacket flapping dramatically behind her, slung over one shoulder like she thought she was modeling for a catalogue. 

“Marie! I was just about to find you!” Pietro smiled winningly like he wouldn’t dream of talking smack about her table manners. 

“Before or after you got this chick in bed?”

...Odd, but you were actually a little flattered that Pietro’s date had sized you up and thought you capable of stealing him away. 

Pietro jumped in, “This is a misunderstanding—quite funny, really. You see—”

“You know what, Quicksilver? I really don’t care. I’m not wasting my time on a guy who’s gonna ignore me all night.” Her hair bounced as she pivoted and power walked off to the elevator bank.

“She’s got a point.”

“On whose side are you?” Pietro frowned, accent thick with indignation. Meanwhile, he wasn’t even bothering to chase after his date.

You shrugged. “Does she really call you ‘Quicksilver?’” Pietro winced in slight embarrassment and nodded. “Ew,” you said. Trying to date someone who kept using your codename would be cringey as hell.

“Hey! What is wrong with my codename?! I am told it is dashing!” Not three seconds ago he was being dumped, and already Pietro was on another ego trip. There really was no keeping this guy down. 

Your phone chimed. It was the timer for the fish en papillote and you stumbled off your stool to grab them out of the oven before they were overcooked. Overcooked whitefish was nobody’s idea of a good time. 

Pietro caught your hands as you were opening the oven. “I can get a pan out of the oven on my own,” you protested. Overbearing jerk, you thought to yourself. But you couldn’t stop yourself from noticing the pleasant roughness of his hands.

“With your bare hands, _printsessa?”_

You glanced down at your hands in his and realized, oh shit, he had a point. You would’ve burned the shit out of them. You needed sleep. Then you realized your hands were still being held in his and snatched them away, face heating up. You _really_ needed sleep.

“Sit,” he said firmly. And because it was the path of least resistance, you did. He had the halibut out and the stove off in the blink of an eye (you were planning on charring the asparagus on the stove a little longer, but whatever). 

Pietro didn’t bother with plating the fish. He simply plopped the two bundles of parchment right onto the marble countertop. Either you were nodding off or he was using his super speed, because you blinked and there was also a serving of asparagus on top of each filet and your prep bowl of sauce with a little spoon—and either your vision was doubling or there was a serving in front of you.

“F’r me?” you blinked sleepily. “I already ate.”

“Well, our beautiful Marie will not be eating it,” he pointed out truthfully. 

You and Wanda had been joking for weeks now about making some party favor bags for Pietro’s dates to take on their way out—just leaving them by the elevators with a little sign—but jokes aside, you did feel bad that this one was leaving empty-handed and empty-stomached. Not so much as a ginger snap. Your mother raised you better than that. Maybe the party bags weren’t such a bad idea… 

“Eat,” he insisted, before digging into his own fish with a throaty noise of content that made you go a bit pink. What? It was always good to know your work was appreciated. 

In the end, you took a few bites (enough to affirm it had in fact been cooked to perfection) before pushing yours over to Pietro and laying your head down on the counter. With his enhanced metabolism, there was no question that he’d want seconds. The marble was cool and smooth under your cheek and you took a moment to bask in the sensation of not being upright.

Next thing you knew, you were in a dimly lit hallway being carried. You tucked your face into the firm pillow next to it. Everything smelled amazing. 

“This time I will not wake you,” Pietro whispered above you. Oh, it was him you were smelling. And snuggling. No pillow. Oh. 

“You just did, genius,” you sleepily mumbled at him. 

“Grumpy,” is all he said in response, and you must have been really out of it because his voice almost sounded fond.

Wherever you were now, it was dark and quiet. 

“Wanda will help you sleep through the night, as soon as I find her,” Pietro promised you. He settled you onto a bed. Your shoes disappeared so you tucked your feet up by your thighs, curled up cozy. A blanket settled over your shoulders and you automatically pinched its hem snug between your chin and collarbone.

“Mmkay, bye.”

*

Teammates, superiors, heads of state, faces you didn’t recognize. All milled around an expansive room in deceptively random looking ellipses, a series of rings widening out from some central point too dim for you to make out. They were interconnected by lengths of thread, some tied to each other, more tied to the focal point all the players were orbiting like a dark sun. 

From what you could tell, you were closer than most to this center, though still too far to see it. The white thread that emerged from your forehead disappeared into the black some yards in front of you. There was Thor ahead of you and Clint even farther on. The teammates you could see were caught in a messy web of threads that trapped them but also held them together. It was secure somehow. 

With a pang, you noticed the absence of the twins. Where were they? You tossed your head over your shoulders until you saw white in the distance. Pietro. As you walked/swam/tangled your way to him, you saw he was tethered mysteriously to Clint by a blood red cord in his chest.

You tugged him, c’mon, by the hand towards the middle to be with the rest. He shouldn’t be on the margins. Pietro allowed this for a bit but eventually dug his heels in, pulling you back in his direction instead, into his arms. He ran his fingers through your hair and you let yourself savor the attention for a lingering moment because this was your dream and as weird as it was, you supposed you deserved to enjoy it.

“Thought you didn’t like him, Dorsey,” Natasha’s voice sassed from the shadowy center of the web. 

Your head jerked around in alarm to find her but it was impossible to make out her form in the black. Nonsensically, you clenched the hand you had fisted in Pietro’s running shirt tighter, pulling him an inch further into you as if to hide him with your body despite him being roughly twice your size. 

“I don’t.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Yeah well I’ve been trained to do that,” you grumbled, fully prepared to ignore this manifestation of your own self-consciousness and turn back to appreciating this dream while you had it.

You didn’t get the chance. In your peripheral vision, a blood red string snapped from slack to strained. More of the idle threads suspended in the black around you went taut and you realized someone was pulling, no, standing on them. Feet en pointe, Natasha picked her graceful way across the string until she was close enough that you could see her face. 

Did she look younger? Her hair and her face were different, an unfamiliar version of her. Maybe a Natasha Romanoff that existed before you met her.

“Not as well as I have,” Natasha said with amusement, her raspy voice like knives being sharpened in anticipation. “I looked over your training record when the team reviewed you for collaboration and, no offense, Dorsey, but I’m not scared.”

The Avengers reviewing your record. Not a specific occurrence you’d given much consideration before. Weird that such a thought would come up in your dream now, years later, but that had likely occurred now that you thought about it. The concept made sense. Too much sense. 

While your anxiety began to percolate, dream Pietro’s hands had made their way around your waist. “Oh crap,” you whispered. “This isn’t my dream, is it?”

Dream Pietro was now trying to pick you up the way he had carried you to bed from the kitchen. Mortified, you scrambled down and out of his hold, smacking his arms in rebuke. You had no clue whether his actions were a projection of Natasha’s mind or your own, but either way you couldn’t be seen giving in. This was so bad.

Natasha only quirked a brow like she was watching a bug do something interesting.

“I was never here, bye,” you gasped and fled the scene. The white thread springing forth from your head protested painfully as you tripped and scrambled your way through the web to the outskirts of Natasha’s solar system, but you pushed onward mulishly until it snapped and you could sprint free from the dream. 

It was even darker out here, untethered in the space between solar systems. In your panic, you’d run too far. A creeping cold thought washed over you that you might drift out here forever if you didn’t find some sort of anchor. So though you had no idea what manner of thing would be lurking out this far, you clung to the first blip of color you saw. 

It was a hallway, you realized, as the steely brown square came into focus. A filthy industrial hallway. You clambered through with heavy metallic noises and arrived on an awful scene. You balked in your armor from the mouth of the hallway as a sweaty man held another version of you by the throat, so tiny in comparison to his frame. Reuben. His hand glowed with power, but his head was turned, focused on where Barton had already made his presence known. After a quick survey of the tableau—fresh arrow in the enemy’s shoulder, smoking gun in the enemy’s hand, man bleeding out from the head at his feet, Dorsey’s father bleeding out, _your_ father bleeding out and Dorsey, _you,_ about to lose consciousness from the hand crushing her windpipe—you, Iron Man, aimed a charge at the asshole’s head and you didn’t bother to miss. 

The shock of the blow knocked the newly headless figure to the ground and Dorsey tumbled down with him. The force startled you out of Tony’s point of view and back into your own, scrambling up from the slick cement coated in your dad’s… your dad’s… You screamed, throat raw from Reuben’s stranglehold. 

It was impossible to tell whether this was Tony’s nightmarish recollection or your own. Either way, you knew how it went and you didn’t want to be here for it. Not to fruitlessly check your dad’s slowing pulse, not to reach down deep to try and wake him only to realize there was a void where your power once lived, not to start frantic CPR when you could barely breathe yourself, not to rage against Clint’s arms dragging you out of harm’s way, not to watch helplessly over Clint’s shoulder as Reuben’s followers grabbed his body and retreated before you could even try to somehow steal your powers back from his corpse, the corpse Iron Man made. You didn’t have to relive any of that. You never should have gone down that hallway.

Shutting your eyes and covering your ears, you curled up on the cement and rocked back and forth in a dark puddle of what you told yourself was blackstrap molasses. It grasped at your ankles and slowed you down more every time you went to and fro. Forget, forget, forget. It was shoulder-deep now, thick and dark and all-consuming. You let it swallow you up gratefully, sinking into its bittersweet oblivion.

Choking, you surfaced somewhere new. Wherever you’d been before—you were already forgetting—was now a sunken ruin forgotten on the floor of this molasses ocean. You didn’t struggle in the gloop, you knew to go limp and let the current carry you. It was slow and you appreciated that. Finally, a dream you could be sure was your own. The taste of blackstrap was cloying though, so you licked it from your mouth and breathed in something fresh. The night air tasted like buttermilk and salt and a green-smelling herb that could have passed for vanilla. 

Time moved slowly. For ages you rode on slow, syrupy waves, letting the past fall further and further behind. Finally, peace. No one else’s dreams, no one else’s memories. Just floating.

With a final sluggish shove from the thick syrup beneath you, you washed ashore where sandy crumbs and fragrant leaves stuck in your sticky hair. It was a tiny island. The isolated scrap of land was embroidered with green. Blue flowers like gentians were blooming sweetly all over. You rolled onto your stomach to tear at a leaf and taste it. How sad that they were trapped here where their pollen and seeds couldn’t spread, that they couldn’t grow where everyone could enjoy their beautiful flavor. That their uniqueness couldn’t help anyone. Your eyes watered. They should be freed.

“A favor,” a familiar Sokovian accent said from where a man stood watching over you. “Anything I am able to do.”

Your eyes opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing accents from a made-up culture is hard. Sorry if it ever looks too weird, but I try to keep the voices interesting/consistent/accurate. Also sorry for the overwrought dream sequences. I promise they’ll get more interesting. Let me know what you think so far! 
> 
> Translations:   
> _somnorosule_ \- sleepy / sleepyhead  
>  _fără inimă_ \- heartless  
>  _Dumnezeule_ \- Dear God


	5. Chapter 5

When you woke up, it was past 1 PM and you knew exactly what favor you wanted to ask of Pietro.

After 16 hours of sleep, your muscles were nearing atrophy. Stretching them back into usable shape took you a minute, twisting between unfamiliar sheets. Tony’s cleaning service must have switched detergents. It smelled incredible in here. You rolled to glance over the edge of the bed to see if your shoes were nearby. They were here… but so were upwards of ten other pairs of shoes. Various makes and colors of boy sneakers littered the floor, half of them torn-up and burnt through on the bottom. Oh man. You weren’t—

Peeking over the other side of the bed, you found a barely hidden, clearly stolen stash of Tony’s neckties. Oh god. You _were._ This was Pietro’s room. Why were you here? Discomfort washed over you like a pail of cold water at finding yourself so intimately, inappropriately enmeshed in Pietro’s space. Throwing your hair in a haphazard bun, you quickly slipped out of his bed and into the en suite bathroom.

You stewed over it as you washed your face. Didn’t Pietro know that Tony had a baker’s dozen of guest rooms? And even if he somehow didn’t know that, why not put you in Wanda’s room like last time? And why did he need so many sneakers? And why the _hell_ was there a badly concealed stockpile of tear gas canisters in the corner of Pietro’s room? The boy was a disaster.

Also, what the hell were you going to wear today? Okay, your pants from yesterday were fine. You weren’t about to pretend like you didn’t typically wear them a minimum of three times before washing. But as for shirts, you’d slept in yours and now you’d dripped water and cleanser onto it. Speaking of, you had to give Pietro credit for keeping a decent cleanser by his sink. It smelled nice, too… Focus.

Was that a shirt on the bed? It was a nondescript grey sweatshirt, folded nicely, so it wasn’t dirty laundry. Intended for you. Logic told you that this was Pietro’s room and it was Pietro’s sweatshirt, but practicality told you that you needed a top to wear and if you believed that this one belonged to Pietro you wouldn’t wear it, therefore it was not Pietro’s because you needed it not to be. It was soft, you found, as you slipped it overhead, and oversized the way you liked a sweater to be. The hem hit you mid-thigh. Wanda’s, you told yourself. It was Wanda’s. She dropped it off when she came to help make sure you fell asleep. You’d thank her when you saw her. But first, you needed to find Pietro.

As you passed the hallway that ran in the direction of Natasha’s room and Tony’s master bedroom, you paused. You sincerely hoped she didn’t remember her dream—most people didn’t, or at least didn’t remember with enough clarity to be damning—or that she didn’t realize it was actually you in it. Tony was there at some point, too, you recalled, brain prickling, but the exact context of seeing him in a dream wasn’t coming back to you. That suited you fine. You knew you’d spent most of the night slowly floating, then drifting ashore a remote and fragrant island. No matter how fraught your intrusion on Natasha’s dream had been, the better part of your night (and apparently morning and day) had been restful. 

You found Pietro when you peered through the glass walls of the gym, passing it on your way to the kitchen. He was either lifting weights or doing sit-ups; it was happening too quickly to tell. If someone has ever taken a pencil between their fingers and twiddled it till it looked like it was bending, then they know what Pietro Maximoff looked like on a weightlifting bench. After a few reps, he noticed you and unless you were mistaken (and you were often mistaken), his eyes snagged on your oversized shirt before returning to your face. He grinned and held up a finger bidding you to wait.

It was only an instant of waiting, and then he was before you, bright-eyed and a little sweaty. _“Buna dimineata, somnorosule,”_ he purred. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept,” was all you would confirm to his smug face verbally, but from your relaxed face to your slight grin, he could no doubt tell you had an excellent night’s (and morning’s) sleep. 

“Good. Because if not, the other conclusion is you died in my room, and this would be sad.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead and you tried not to pay any attention to how good performance mesh looked on him when he was sweaty and panting just a little. And there you were, in a messy topknot and no makeup, probably pillow-creased six ways to Sunday, god.

“Well cancel the funeral, I’m here. I made it. You’re gonna hold up your end of the deal, right?”

“Of course! What do you take me for?”

“A thief, a flirt, and a liar,” you told him baldly. 

“You are still confused from sleep, I see. I am a superhero, always honest and brave, _printsessa.”_

“Sure you are. About those favors you owe me… have time to go to Brooklyn today?”

“Mm,” he pondered. “I only need to put away the weights, brush my teeth, shave, change clothes, eat something, sign autographs, put my clothes out for dry cleaning, and catch up on my emails.”

As you opened your mouth to tell him your request could wait for another time, Pietro’s shape flickered in front of you and disappeared. Before you could finish saying ‘rude’ to yourself, he was back, dressed and sparkly clean with the straw of a protein shake between his lips. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw that the weights in the gym had in fact been put away and the bench had been wiped down.

Pietro took a loud slurp. “Okay, I am good to go.”

You stopped short for a moment before repressing the amazement Pietro was so clearly gunning for. Show-off. Instead, you just swallowed and needled him. “They make dry clean-only tracksuits?”

He hmphed like he knew you were impressed anyways and followed you when you headed down the hall towards the kitchen.

“I’ll drive,” you told him. “Let me grab some coffee first, though.”

“Your coffee is _slow,”_ Pietro whined. “I will deliver autographs downstairs.”

Wanda was lounging in the living area when you walked in. “Good morning, Bea.”

“Morning. Or, uh, afternoon. Thanks for last night.” You hiked your oversized sleeves up your forearms and pressed some buttons on the coffeemaker, strolling over to join Wanda while you waited. You didn’t thank her for the sweatshirt. Deep down, you knew it wasn’t hers and thanking her would just draw more attention to it. When you noticed the half-eaten granola bar beside her, you grimaced. “I would have made you guys breakfast if I hadn’t been asleep. Why’d you knock me out for so long?”

“I haven’t given you any help since last night,” Wanda said. “The rest was you. I was happy to hear you decided to stay the night.”

“Pietro made me.”

Her brows rose. “He made you?”

You snorted groggily. “He ‘made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,’” you told her, complete with air-quotes. 

She rolled her eyes. 

You lolled your head to face her when you said, “You’ve got to stop letting him watch those mafia movies.”

She groaned. “I know.”

A loud knock on the doorway interrupted the two of you. Pietro ducked in, barely pausing en route to the elevators. “Come on, fucko, let’s go for a ride,” he quoted in some mangled semblance of a de Niro impersonation.

Eyeing Wanda, you just silently gestured a hand at the space Pietro had just occupied for about two seconds. Wanda winced.

“While we’re gone, see if you can destroy his copy of _Scarface,_ ” you told her seriously. No one needed Pietro on the battletime comms every five minutes asking if the cock-a-roaches wanted to play rough. No one.

You and your full thermos joined Pietro on the elevator to the garage. He sipped happily at a juice blend, somehow already finished with his shake, and you realized you were sort of asking to spend your day off with him. The thought startled you into silence when you should have been explaining your plan.

“The favor is in Brooklyn, ah?” Pietro prompted you.

“I should probably warn you that it’s super weird and kind of illegal,” you started.

“I love it already,” Pietro said, forestalling any further explanation, and without further ado swanned out of the elevator and towards the not-Tony’s section of the parking deck. Wow, he really was down just like that. You had to give Pietro credit where credit was due, he put his money where his mouth was. You pinched your thigh and got walking to keep your mind from wondering where else he put his mouth.

Climbing into one of the cars provided for your convenience, you sighed, knowing that you couldn’t go any further without telling Pietro exactly how you were asking him to break the law and giving him a chance to back out. You started the car. “There’s a greenhouse in Williamsburg that I want you to take some plants from.”

Silence fell over the car. 

He was smirking at you. You could tell it was genuine and not his empty flirtatious look, because it made his eyes crinkle. No matter how genuine, it couldn’t be mistaken for a smile—it was smirk through and through.

“What,” you finally said after enduring this for long seconds. 

“When we meet, you are scolding me for theft, pouting and turning all my coworkers against me—”

“Pouting!” you protested. You didn’t pout. Just because you were small didn’t mean your complaining was instantly transformed into _pouting,_ that wasn’t fair.

“—and now you are asking me to steal,” he finished with relish. He ran his tongue along the seam of his self-satisfied lips with relish, leaving you with the impression that his utter satisfaction with this turning of the tables must have tasted as good as it felt, as good as it _looked_ on him. You wondered… no! Focus. 

“It’s not really illegal… I mean, it is, but they won’t be missed or anything. Just little clippings, not whole plants! And I won’t turn a profit.”

“What do you want with this plants?” Darn, it was so cute how ‘these’ became ‘this’ in his mouth. 

“The deal was no questions asked,” you reminded him loftily. If you told him, he’d only make more fun of you. “You just need to know the where, not the why.”

His pretty eyes slid to watch you under heavy lids. “They are drugs again,” he tsked as though deeply, morally disappointed in you. He couldn’t hold the face for long though, and his puckish excitement began to peek through. 

“Yup,” you joked drily instead of correcting him. “We’re going on a grocery run for heroin poppies. Buckle your seatbelt.”

Pietro did buckle his seatbelt, with alacrity and a goofy, excited grin. “I’m so glad Stark hired you, Tiny Montana,” he said with amusement so strong and warm in his voice that you ran the risk of taking his words too seriously. 

You spent the ride over describing the plants’ appearance to Pietro in detail while you bullied him into taking notes on his phone, in case the plants in the greenhouse were unlabeled. Pietro had taken to shooting you odd glances at your passion for the subject, but if he hadn’t noticed by now that you were weird, that was really on him.

As you crossed the Hudson, your conscience began burbling like an upset stomach. You weren’t a rule breaker, let alone a law breaker. But you reminded yourself that this was basically a victimless crime. One you’d been idly daydreaming about for years. Hugo wouldn’t even notice the cuttings were missing. 

All that’s really important to know about Chef Hugo Marchant was that he was a very skilled chef, an avid collector of ultra-rare spices, and a huge douchenozzle who skipped the part of kindergarten where they taught sharing. After trying a $30 slice of buttermilk pie at his pretentious, stupidly exclusive restaurant, you’d asked the executive chef about the almost-vanilla flavor in the pie and in the process finally found someone willing to talk and brag about herbs longer than you were willing to listen. 

When you had offered to pay or trade (quite generously—you had a variety of Prussian blue basil that was much sought after) for a cutting of that ungettable vanilla-tasting species of South American gentianella that had flavored his buttermilk pie, he’d laughed at you and asked if you had anything else to offer while leering at your chest. When you told him a pointed _no,_ he’d explained that someone without a degree from Escoffier or better wouldn’t know what to do with such an herb and tottled off. Which was a deeply unpleasant experience on its own, but. Well, Hugo’s domesticated cultivar of this gentianella species was, per your research, the _only_ known specimen able to be cultivated in temperate conditions as a garden herb. Hugo had seen to that. After acquiring his domesticated gentianella species from the Peruvian lab that bred it, he either purchased or, according to rumor, destroyed every plant not already in his possession. It was around this time, conveniently, that the horticultural lab mysteriously went out of business. 

Hugo might not be required to share if he didn’t want to, but it rankled you deeply that if someone in North America wanted to taste this ephemeral, beautiful green-vanilla flavor, they had to fly to New York and buy a $30 slice of pie to do it. That smacked of bullshit. And as you’d asked around about Hugo’s gentianella ( _not_ his genitalia, as one pastry chef had misread in your email), similar stories of culinary lore cropped up about other near-extinct herbs Hugo had allegedly stolen and horded over the years. Vining claret sage, Byzantine sweetmint tarragon, an ancient cousin of rosemary that was said to taste like a nutmeg forest fire, and more—all able to be grown in a kitchen garden or greenhouse, all only grown in Hugo’s private greenhouse in Williamsburg. You’d idly fantasized about liberating some of these herbs over the years, not to sell them for exorbitant prices to farmers market goers or to McCormick’s but to enjoy at home and _perhaps_ plant at random in community gardens around the city.

Upon parking, you left the car running like a good delinquent. You turned to describe the best route to the greenhouse to avoid security only to find Pietro already shutting the passenger side door in your face and disappearing. You wiggled in your seat uneasily, far from comfy with the role of getaway driver. With the role of criminal. You had picked your first favor from Pietro on impulse and he moved so damn quickly you hadn’t had the time to truly second guess it until now. What the hell were you doing? 

Nervous and antsy, your eyes darted quickly around the windshield and your rear mirrors. The house in question was blocks and blocks away, anyway. No one would notice you here, you told yourself, no matter how long it took Pietro to complete your scavenger hunt for a laundry list of obscure herbs in Hugo’s ostentatious greenhouse complex. You were parked on a secluded, residential street. It wasn’t like Pietro was robbing a Tiffany’s at midnight. This was a backyard greenhouse in broad daylight. You’d be fine, unless—

You didn’t even have the time to properly stew before the passenger side door swung open and there Pietro was. You were going to ask if he had forgotten the sterilized herb scissors and come back for them, but then you saw the bag in his hand. He was already totally finished, looking for all the world like he’d done nothing more ethically taxing than grocery shopping. 

“For you,” he presented the bag to you, fragrant stems of… oh my, that must be the claret sage you smelled and saw peeking out like a bouquet of delicate, dusty red roses trailing over their packaging petal by petal. The rumors were true.

“Oh! Oh wow,” you leaned over to sample the aroma delicately, a mixture of smells familiar and terribly obscure. “Thanks.” You felt yourself dimple with gratitude and excitement. You never did things like this, and you probably shouldn’t, but… A little thrill ran up your spine.

“Did I get the right things, _frumoasa?_ Not all the garden was labeled so I tried to use your descriptions, but I am no hulticultor.”

Your fingers itched to go through the plants and you really wanted to ask him what _frumoasa_ meant, but the curiosity wasn’t strong enough to distract you from your mounting paranoia. 

“I’ll double check them after we leave the scene of the crime, shut the door, Pietro!”

The look he leveled at you was charmed, like you were doing something adorable. And okay, you knew he’d stolen far worse than a few herb cuttings—this was basically picking wildflowers as far as he was concerned—but you hardly did _anything_ illegal if you could help it. You jiggled your knee furiously. 

“The door, Pietro!” The speediest man in the world, and now he decides to take it slow, you lamented internally. Your anxiety was begging you to peel out of your snug parking space hard enough to leave tire marks.

“I will,” he assured you calmly, eyes sparkling. “After you give me a kiss.”

“Are you kidding me? You want to be cute _now?”_ In your imagination, security alarms blared and a police siren warbled to life. You knew he was just bugging you, that this didn’t have anything to do with actual attraction, but there were things at stake, here! 

“I can wait,” Pietro said generously, leaning back into the passenger’s seat in utter relaxation. There wasn’t a tense muscle in his body.

“Pietro, th-that wasn’t the deal.” The leather of the steering wheel creaked under the stress of your compulsive squeezing. “We need to go!”

“Better hurry, then.” He slipped his eyes shut, apparently confident in his leverage. Pietro seemed to soak up your aggravation like a supplement, like a vitamin that nourished him body and soul.

“Argh,” you huffed in pitchy desperation, your anxiety multiplying by the second. “I hate you I hate you I hate you!”

“Ah? Do my ears deceive me or do I hear police helicopt—mmf!”

A hand fisted in his t-shirt collar was all that it took. You tugged him down so you could reach his lips and get the hell out of here.

Sweet silence. The sound of Pietro shutting up might have been the sweetest music to ever grace your ears. You savored it the way Pietro had savored your irritation, with eyes shut and mouth smug. Not to mention _snug_ against his mouth, which was a surprisingly soft landing place nestled among stubble that barely scraped your chin in a pleasant counterpoint to the smoothness of his lips. You’d never kissed someone with facial hair and surprised yourself with how much you liked the feel of it. He was nice to touch. You lingered. The taste of greenish almost-vanilla was subtle but unmistakable. 

Gentianella. Heist. You remembered yourself and pulled back.

You’d never seen Pietro so shocked, face devoid of his usual cockiness—not even when you’d knocked him out cold in Tony’s kitchen. His eyes darted over your face with preternatural quickness as if he was trying to figure out what just happened. _Hint, Pietro: Exactly what you freaking asked for, idiot._ Maybe he never imagined you’d actually go through with it, only angling to rile you up for fun like always. Served him right to have his bluff called. 

Hand still fisted in his shirt collar, faces still inches apart, you calmly asked, “Pietro?”

He gulped, seemingly in a daze. _“Da?”_ It was kind of adorable how dumbstruck Mr. Lothario himself was by a single close-mouthed kiss. The color rising to his face gave him the peculiar illusion of… innocence. 

You looked him dead steady in the eye and relinquished his collar. “Shut the goddamn door.”

After he took another beat to swallow dry, in the blink of an eye the door was shut and you were pulling out of your parking spot. The sound of the radio interspersed with the voice of the navigation app on your phone filled the dead air, but it couldn’t fight the unusual vibe in the car. You knew you should have said something else to set a casual tone, but you couldn’t get your mouth to speak. Your cavalier facade was inevitably leaving you and you were turning back into a pumpkin. Did you just _kiss him?_ So much chill was disappearing that you were probably leaving a visible trail of jettisoned chill behind the car. _You kissed him._ Why had you kissed him? Leaving aside the fact that he was literally asking for it, how could you have ever thought that would be a sound idea? And how had such a bad idea turned out so… good? Oh god now you were picturing it again. Was he picturing it? No, don’t _look at him,_ you fool! 

Finally, Pietro broke the ice. “So,” he said with forced brightness, drumming his fingers into a blur on the dashboard. “Where are we going? Mexico until _the heat dies down?”_ From his tone, you inferred this was another line learned from ‘the mafia movies.’

You were being made fun of again. “Shut up,” you muttered, turning off the residential street and heading in the general direction of the Williamsburg Bridge. “We’re going back to the Tower, unless there are any stops you’d like to make.”

“Yes I would like to go get our fingerprints burned off.”

You rolled your eyes, but deep down felt extremely grateful he was making jokes and not bringing up the kiss. “Aren’t you supposed to do that before the crime? Such a sloppy thief.”

He made an indignant noise. “I am a master thief! Did I not just steal for you… whatever I just stole for you?”

You grinned, but your rejoinder was interrupted by a phone ring.

You glanced down. “Ah shit.” Your mother. You hadn’t texted her last night to tell her where you would be. 

“Hi Mom,” you said upon picking up, voice pitched a smidge higher than you would’ve liked. “I’m so sorry I didn’t give you a heads up that I wasn’t coming home last night.” Hopefully the squeak in your voice sounded like guilt for not calling rather than guilt for secretly working for your old employer behind your mom’s back and using your day off to commit a robbery. 

“You know where my mind goes, Bea. You know I worry to death.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to. I just,” you glanced out the window and caught sight of a trendy bar. “I went out with some friends after work and it got really late on us. Seemed smarter to stay the night at a friend’s. Next time I’ll text, I promise. We were just having a good time and I forgot.”

Pietro was looking at you curiously, no doubt wondering why you were lying, but you could only focus on one conversation at a time.

Your mom sighed. “Please do. I’m glad you were having fun, though. It’s good to see you out with friends more.” She wouldn’t feel that way if she knew who those friends were. 

“I know you worry and that’s why I’m happy to give you updates on where I’m going to be, but you gotta remember that I’m twenty-five. It’s not second nature to check in with you anymore and I’m going to slip up sometimes,” you reminded her gently. Though you understood her reasons, why she would be worried after everything that had happened to you, it still chafed to be coddled, like you weren’t an adult or your mother didn’t trust you. You shouldn’t have to check in with your mom about a goddamn sleepover at age twenty-five.

“Alright,” she conceded. But weakened the concession by following it up with, “What time will you be home tonight? Coming in from the Village, right?”

“Should be home by nine.” You didn’t say anything about Greenwich Village. If she pressed, you would lie and say yes, but barring that, you really wanted to keep the outright lying to a minimum. “I might have some leftover lemon bars to bring home. _Might.”_

One glance over at Pietro, guiltily biting the inside of his cheek, told you exactly what you needed to know about the state of those lemon bars from last night. Long gone.

“Actually probably not. Something, though. I’ll bring you something good.”

“Just bring you, sweets. As long as you bring you, I’m happy.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too. See you tonight.” You set your phone back in the cupholder, exhaling heavily. Would you be able to keep your job a secret from her long enough to save up the money to move out and go back to private cheffing for regular families?

“Your mother does not know where you work?”

Eyes on the traffic ahead, you shook your head. 

“You should be proud, Bea! Stark has his pick of Michelin starred chefs—though what a tire business has to say about food I do not know—and he picks you!”

Your face heated up from the praise. “My mom doesn’t like him.”

“Good woman,” Pietro smirked with approval. “Did he hit on her? I can only imagine she is beautiful.”

Not wanting to give him a chance to fluster you further, which he undoubtedly would do since empty flirtation was apparently the national pastime of Sokovia, you didn’t ask him what he meant by that. You simply snorted, “No. She doesn’t like any of the Avengers—S.H.I.E.L.D., really. Scared her to death when I was an agent, always in danger. She blames them for,” you swallowed and abridged the truth, hesitant to delve into your entire personal history while stuck in traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge, “for the incident that messed me up and got me decommissioned.”

“What happened?”

For a moment, you drummed your fingers on the steering wheel to stall and tried not to squirm. You didn’t really like to talk about yourself, which wasn’t often an issue since people didn’t usually ask. You never tried to keep a low profile; it was something you did naturally. People who met you didn’t get the impression that you were someone with an exciting past or hidden layers. You were a sleepy cook who looked, sounded, and behaved like a sleepy cook, end of story. Besides, amongst the people who could appreciate the full truth, coworkers like the Avengers, your life story wasn’t really all that remarkable anyways. Practically pedestrian by comparison.

What Pietro was asking about was a painful memory. But two years had passed, and in that time you’d become marginally better at summarizing the clusterfuck. “There was an altercation. This cult out of Utah led by this delusional whackjob, John Joseph Reuben—because of course it would be a guy named something like John Joseph. Anyway, he was obsessed with the idea of living clean, no pharmaceuticals, no substances, nothing. Drug companies are out to get you type stuff. Which spoke to a lot of people. He was like a juice cleanse person on steroids, except not on steroids, obviously.”

“It’s kind of funny, actually, people started calling him and his followers ‘Clean Livers’ since none of them drank and the name caught on. Always made me feel a little better that they got such a dumb name with no say in the matter. Reuben was not all there, if you know what I mean. He would fast and meditate until he’d have these visions, hallucinations. The dreams of an unclouded mind were divine according to him. The Clean Liver movement was really into sleep and the subconscious. He was convinced his visions were messages about how he needed to change the world.”

Your navigation app interrupted then with soft, robotic directions, and you realized you were rambling, giving him too much detail.

“Long story short, they needed my powers for his master plan to work. Reuben was a power sink, he could steal powers.”

“He was Enhanced?”

“It’s still not exactly clear if he was a mutant or Enhanced or had some sort of device or what. S.H.I.E.L.D. never got the chance to examine him. But he could sap power from you and take it as his own temporarily. The Clean Livers didn’t need me, just my powers. So they set a trap.” You hoped Pietro wouldn’t ask why your voice broke on the word ‘trap.’ Hopefully he’d assume the emotion was grief for your former glory.

“He got most of the way through sucking the power right out of me—he had a hostage and with my powers crippled I didn’t know how to stop him safely. And then the reinforcements arrived and Iron Man took care of him. Dead before he hit the ground. I never got the chance to reabsorb what he took from me. If I even could.”

You smiled bitterly. “And that was it. Killing him didn’t restore my powers. I’ve been this way ever since. I used to be pretty good, you know. Short range, long range. I could put everyone on that bus,” you gestured at the full vehicle stuck in traffic beside you, “everyone on this block, to sleep without batting an eye. Now I can barely knock one person out without feeling tapped. Hell, I can’t even make myself fall asleep.” You gave a weak attempt at a laugh.

A quiet beat passed between you. You couldn’t bring yourself to check Pietro’s expression. “Anyways,” you said, feeling awkward about sharing this much, though Pietro had asked. “The process hurt me. I was out for a while. My mom thought I was gonna die.” You swallowed, not keen to relive those weeks of your life. “She blamed S.H.I.E.L.D. for the whole thing, for putting a target on D—on my back. Though secretly, I think she’s glad my powers are impaired now,” you confided. “Like that keeps me safe.”

“She worries for you,” Pietro said.

“Well yeah.” Duh. He wasn’t telling you anything you didn’t already know. 

But then he added, “To her, you and your abilities are different things. There is you and then there is the thing that brings danger. Most people, they either think you are the power, that it… what is the word? _Defines_ you. Or they think they are separate, that you can divide the power from the person. Even we ourselves like to pretend sometimes as a comfort that it is an accessory that can be left behind if we want. But none of those are true.” And huh, maybe Pietro got it after all. It occurred to you that you’d never really talked about this with someone who could actually relate. Someone Enhanced or different like you. Actually, you had more in common with Pietro than he even knew. 

“Yeah,” you blinked, unable to keep the note of surprise out of your voice.

Pietro’s mouth curled like he’d heard it. “Even with powers gone, they are a part of you. No?”

“Yeah,” you said again. “It feels weird to mourn my powers when I never asked for them. As a kid, I hated them. You know, that age you just wanna be normal.” The dream sharing, especially, freaked the other kids out at naptime. You hadn’t learned yet to keep your mouth shut about it.

“Hated them?”

“I guess you wouldn’t get it. You chose Enhancement,” you commented offhand, letting the statement hang open-ended in the air. You’d read about his and Wanda’s introduction to HYDRA. On the one hand, you often wondered what that felt like, to grasp for power, to choose it, but on the other, you didn’t want to pry.

“I chose death,” he corrected you with a snort. He leaned back in the leather passenger seat like he was discussing the weather. “Of course we hoped that the experiment would be successful, that after years of protests and struggling we could sieze the ability to make a difference and avenge our parents’ death. But we weren’t stupid. We knew the odds of survival were not good. Death seemed better than living without real purpose, struggling uselessly, everyday failing them.” By them, did he mean their countrymen? Their parents? “It was worth the risk. We thought.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

He frowned and looked out his window. “Are you ever relieved to be without yours?”

You thought the question over seriously with a pinched brow. In the interest of being honest, you told him, “Sometimes. But far from most of the time.”

“My answer for you is the same,” Pietro said. “And what now? Can your Enhancement be returned?”

“Not Enhanced,” you reminded him gently before answering his question. “And I don’t know. I’ve been trying basically ever since that night. Research and specialists and all that expensive stuff to reverse whatever Reuben did or at least fix my insomnia. To be honest, that’s why I took the job with Tony. It isn’t cheap to see all these specialists and try their weird treatments. But sleeping pills make me so sick. I figure I have to keep trying, right?”

“And nothing has helped?” When you glanced away from the road, he was inspecting your profile with care, like he was looking for the solution himself.

“No breakthroughs yet, but I haven’t given up. There’s so much we never found out about that cult, slippery bastards. They were never fully uprooted. Active or not, some of them are still out there and there’s a chance they’ll have useful information. Reuben could have family we don’t know about, he was pretty off-grid. And any family might have his abilities or have information on how they work. Maybe even have the power sink artifact. It could be reversed somehow, there’s nothing that says that’s impossible.” On reflex, your words got quicker with cautious excitement whenever you spoke about those possibilities. Like you had to get the optimistic ideas out all at once before they could burn you. 

Pietro raised his brows. “The leader, you think he used an object to take powers? Something like the Scepter?”

You winced. “No—well, we don’t know. Cultists made off with the body. Maybe, though.” You hoped so. Your S.H.I.E.L.D. agent days were behind you—powers or not you’d moved on—but as sleep therapy after sleep therapy failed, having your powers restored wholesale seemed like your best shot at fixing your insomnia and regaining some semblance of a functional life. “Anyways, that’s why my mom hates S.H.I.E.L.D. and that’s why she doesn’t know I’m working for Tony.”

“Your life was taken from you, with violence. Like me,” he concluded, voice quiet and solemn. “And you cannot move on because it is still in your life every day, your health.”

“Have you moved on?” you asked because when once you thought about it, you couldn’t even picture what moving on would look like.

Pietro exhaled heavily, knotting a hand in his white hair. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I have let go of the anger. But I haven’t grabbed on to something new. So it is halfway. I don’t know.”

“You’ll get there,” you said with confidence. “Apparently, you’ve been insightful and kinda smart this whole time without telling me. So you’ll definitely get there.”

He rolled his eyes at the ribbing, but ultimately just said, “You will too.”

You felt weird. You never talked about this shit with anybody, for very good legal and trauma-related reasons, so getting fresh, surprisingly insightful perspective from Pietro of all people— _Pietro who you had just kissed_ —felt surreal. On account of having eyes, you had known for some time now that you were attracted to him physically, but this conversation even more than the kiss was making you worried that it might go deeper than that. He flirted with you constantly, but it was like breathing for him. It never meant anything. But maybe—

Pietro changed the subject. “Are you really not going to check this plants? I am not joking when I say I know nothing of plants. I surely got some wrong.”

“I already know you got the important one.” You waved off his concerns with a dismissive hand. “I could taste it,” you said before you thought better of it. On his lips. You’d tasted them on his lips. “In the future, you might not wanna put plants you aren’t familiar with in your mouth, genius.”

You glanced over to the passenger seat, waiting for Pietro to lecture you about healing factor, but instead found him sidetracked and blinking. Maybe in reaction to your casual if vague mention of tasting the herbs on his lips. Actually, now that you let your mind linger on the thought, it was starting to fluster you, too.

Pietro cleared his throat. “It smelled good. I was curious.” 

“Remind me never to take you to my Nana’s garden. She’ll chase you out with pesticides if she finds you chewing on her roses just ‘cause they smell good.”

“This are herbs, no?” he asked, holding up the fragrant bag of green clippings.

“Luckily for you, yes they are. If you got the right ones, that is.”

“I also clipped some from other plants that looked cool,” Pietro admitted without a trace of remorse. 

“You what?” you laughed. “For real?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I was already there.”

You wiggled in the drivers seat. “I’m kind of excited to see what’s in there, now.” Taking in your surroundings, you tried to estimate how long it was going to take you to get to the Tower and then home to put the clippings in water. 

“Oh,” you exclaimed softly as you glanced out the window. “We’re pretty close to that good Asian supermarket. Is there anything we need to pick up for this week?”

Pietro shrugged because of course he didn’t know. You were really just thinking out loud.

“What was it I needed from there… Oh! Duck, tamarind, Shaoxing wine, dried chilies… Look through the produce while I’m there. You don’t mind if we stop, do you? I’ll be quick.”

Pietro didn’t mind. You started looking for parking.

Once you put the car in park, you sat for a minute, taking time to poke around your phone to look over your potential menus for the week and grocery list. You didn’t always do your own shopping, FRIDAY often had what you needed delivered. But when you had the time, it always paid to pick out your own produce and meat, to adapt menus on the fly based on what looked freshest. It was startling how pleasant this was, sitting quietly with Pietro in the parked car going over your grocery list. He was drumming his fingers impossibly quickly to the late 90s indie whatever on the radio with spring sunshine pouring in through the sun roof. You were well-rested and the whole car smelled of fresh-cut herbs. You could get used to weekends like this.

“Let’s see, what do we have going on this week… I’m off Monday, but I was thinking gyros for Tuesday. I’ve been in the mood to do something roasted and elaborate, like crispy duck. Should that be Friday, do you think?” The afternoon sun glanced warm off your cheekbone when you tilted your head to look at Pietro.

“You should make that Thursday for my date,” Pietro said.

You felt an odd whooshing sensation, like gravity kicking in belatedly, like falling. _His date._ Of course he had a date. Mentally, you shook yourself, he always had a date, how had he caught you off-guard? “Sure, yeah. That makes sense.”

Something must have shifted. Somewhere in the midst of the two of you talking about your damn feelings, you must have slipped up and fallen prey to the illusion that he liked you for real. Must have forgotten that he was a chronic flirt with traumatized adolescence that resulted in a codependent overprotective relationship with his sister, which meant that him bossing a female friend around, him pestering her and helping her whether she liked it or not, him carrying a female friend to sleep in his bed didn’t mean what you wanted it to mean. Aside from the empty flirting, he was treating you like a sister. You must have forgotten that or you wouldn’t feel like… _this_ right now. 

“It sounds delicious,” he offered when you stared at him and said nothing further.

Desperate to avoid a conspicuous pause, you cut your eyes away and opened your mouth without fully knowing what to say. “I’ll, um. Be quick in the store. I need to get home and put the cuttings in water. Hopefully I can get them to root,” you babbled.

“They will grow roots? Just like that?”

Your expression tried for hopeful but got twisted halfway to wistful. “I guess we’ll see.”

When you put your hand on the door handle and leaned to get out, he leaned over the console in unison like a magnet. “I can come with you,” he said quickly. His voice had changed; maybe he had picked up on the mood shift in the car. “I have never seen this specialty store.”

You looked back over your shoulder, chin brushing against the soft cotton of the sweatshirt. “Oh,” you told him. A feeling was mounting inside of you, telling you to get out of this car and fast. “Oh that’s alright. I’ll get it done best on my own.”

*

_Crispy duck with summer rolls, peanut sauce, rice, and snickerdoodle ice cream to finish._

“Bea,” Pietro said from behind you.

“Gah!” you gasped, clutching your racing heart. Fuck you were getting tired of that. “How long have you _been_ there?!” You hadn’t seen much of him this week. That was by design, though you worried whether putting a little distance between you and Pietro after the plant heist might make him act out (you know, like a two-year-old would) with strange demands to bait your attention. And you were right to worry.

“I need you to make an ice cream without milk or sugar,” Pietro demanded, not deigning to answer your question. 

Your startled body drooped into languor—with Pietro it was always same shit, different day. Your flat eyes raked over him, droll. “You do know what ice cream is, right?”

“Mel is allergic to the dairy.”

“You could’ve mentioned that a week ago.” The snickerdoodle ice cream for his date tomorrow night was already ready to go. “You need to get a hobby, Pietro. I’m not stupid. I know you’re just doing this to get a rise out of me.”

Pietro put a wounded hand against his heart. “Would I do such a thing to be evil?” _Yes._ “I just want to make sure it is all perfect, of course.”

“I don’t know what for,” you said with an unimpressed side-eye. “They never come back, anyways.”

“Only because I do not invite them back,” Pietro argued. “My choice.”

“The redhead who walked out on you didn’t seem like ‘your choice.’” You slipped him a mean smirk.

His jaw clenched. “Mostly my choice,” he amended. Clearly, you’d wounded his pride. “There have been many dates, yes, but I am looking for a girl who can _keep up._ She will be hard to find.”

“And hard to catch,” you quipped drily. “Good luck with that.” Someone who could keep up with Pietro… you shuddered at the thought.

“Thank you,” he said, pretending he didn’t know you were being sarcastic. He ran long fingers through white hair, still smug. “Good luck with your ice cream. I look forward to it.”

“You’re seriously gonna make me do that?” you whined.

“You are smart enough to figure it out, Sleepy,” he sang as he swanned back out of the room.

“Nyuhh, you are smart enaff to feegure it out, Zlippy,” you mocked him in a dumb voice under your breath as you stretched out your custard whipping arm and pulled up some dairy free recipes on your phone. “Pompous son of a…”

Twenty-four hours later, it was time to inspect your creation. You shut the freezer to discover Natasha had stolen into the kitchen for a bottle of healthy green juice. Her eyes instantly snapped to the ice cream carton in your hand with predatory focus.

You decided to have mercy on her. “I’m doing a taste test for texture. Want to help?”

“I suppose,” she feigned indifference.

After letting the ice cream warm up a little, you warned her, “It’s going to be a little coconutty, it’s dairy free. Let’s see if it turned out.”

Natasha groaned around her spoon. Success. “The flavor is cinnamon?”

“Snickerdoodle,” you corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

You grinned slowly like an evil scientist. “Cookie dough.”

“Ooh,” Natasha cooed, going in with the back end of her spoon to get a second bite with cookie dough in it. “What’s the occasion?”

“One of Pietro’s dates, what else?” you snorted, turning to put the carton back in the freezer.

She actually paused opening her juice to frown back at you, affronted. “Sorry, what? He’s still going on those?”

“Yeah. What part of that is surprising to you? He’s nuts.”

“Of course he’s nuts. But he also made you sleep in his bed last weekend.” 

You didn’t even question how she’d heard about that. Jesus, spies were the _worst gossips._

“So?” Your face heated up at her line of reasoning though you didn’t understand it yet, desperately hoping she didn’t remember her dream from the night you spent in Pietro’s room.

“So, I expected the punk to have narrowed his playing field.”

“His what?” 

“It seriously doesn’t bother you?” She wasn’t going to buy it no matter what you said, her face broadcast that loud and clear. 

“Nat, I told you, I don’t like him.”

“Sure you don’t. Even if I believed you, that wouldn’t be the point. It’s gross he’s making moves on you while he’s still taking half of New York out to dinner.”

“He’s not making moves on me, crazy lady. Our only interactions are him pestering me like a kid sister when Wanda isn’t available.” You didn’t tell her about the kiss. It would only give her the wrong impression even more strongly than before.

“He calls you _printsessa.”_

“He calls _everyone printsessa.”_

“I really thought after your whole jaded transformation over the last few years, you would have become more aware of this crap. But you’re just as oblivious as before. It’s just as bad as with whatsisface… Agent Burns.” Natasha cracked her neck and tilted her head to level you a disappointed look. “I mean, you’re literally trained to read body language, Dorsey.”

“I know it’s hard to grasp, but most of us don’t go through life as Natasha Romanoff. There is not a ninety percent chance that any man, woman, or child talking to me is flirting,” you explained patiently. You weren’t ugly, but you were subtler. A more delicate, acquired taste, and you liked it that way. Attention made you twitch. There was a reason you were suited to covert ops.

When your brain caught up with the rest of her words, you squinted. “Wait, Burns? What about Burns?” One second, Natasha was making baseless accusations about your emotions and the next she was bringing up random coworkers from your time working with S.H.I.E.L.D. You couldn’t keep up.

She rolled her eyes, suddenly looking beyond bored with the conversation. Then her eyes lit up. In the field, that expression meant Natasha had terrible idea. It meant blood was coming. “What about Burns indeed…”

So dramatic. You shifted your focus to taking the ducks out of the brine. “Can you not supervillain monologue in the kitchen? I’ve got lots left to do.”

Natasha obligingly slid from her stool, fluid like black silk, and made her exit.

This should have been your moment of peace, but it was only three seconds of reprieve before you overheard Natasha encounter someone in the hallway.

Okay, yeah, you’d been hoping karma would catch up with Pietro for making you whip up that high maintenance ice cream last night. But you should have been more careful about what you wished for. Karma had apparently come in the form of a pissed off, cryptic Natasha accosting him on his way to the kitchen. You couldn’t see any of it, but you could hear the two clear as day.

“Hey Maximoff, what the fuck?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re seriously still dating around? Still?” There was a pause; your brained filled in the image of one of Natasha’s most intimidating looks.

“What about it?” Pietro deflected, sounding supremely uncomfortable. Now why couldn’t you cow him like that? You ought to ask Natasha for lessons.

“What, you think I’m blind? Take some advice, Speedy, and slow your roll. Cancel the rest of your dates. Or cut out the other shit.”

“... I wasn’t aware you are so interested in my love life.” Woof, he sounded so tense. 

“Not _yours,_ particularly,” Natasha drawled in her best cryptic spy voice. 

“I will say what I think you would say to me if I am telling you how to date: you don’t know me so well. Not your business.” You could tell he was getting prickly, like whenever Wanda tried to tell him what to do.

“Yeah, here’s the thing, Maximoff. It isn’t advice. I’m telling you. Stop the speed dating or stop the you-know-what. One or the other.”

“Speed dating, that’s funny.” 

“Not a joke or a request, kid.”

“So it is what? A threat?” The casual bravado in Pietro’s voice said that he wasn’t scared of Natasha. That had yet to ever work out well for someone.

“Guess you’ll find out.” High-heeled footsteps echoed quieter and quieter down the hall as Natasha made her exit. 

A long moment passed without any noise whatsoever from Pietro. At length, it became obvious that if he’d been on his way to the kitchen in the first place, he’d apparently changed his mind. You turned the faucet back on and hurried to rinse the spices off the ducks, feeling guilty for eavesdropping and even guiltier for hoping his date sucked.

Later, when asked why Mel of the Dairy Allergy never made it past the first date, Pietro would say, “She did not know who Al Pacino was,” and leave it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the weird herbs in this chapter are made up (sadly). If you have thoughts or feelings so far, I would love to hear them! Slow burn too slow?? Fictional plant heist too weird??
> 
> Translations:  
>  _Buna dimineata, somnorosule_ \- Good morning, sleepyhead  
>  _frumoasa_ \- beautiful  
>  _Da?_ \- Yes?


	6. Chapter 6

_Peanut butter & jelly sandwich cookies._

“Is it just me, or is, like, everyone here today?” you asked FRIDAY as you put away groceries. This time of day, the team tended to be training, working, something out of the house. Yet people kept filtering in and out of the living area.

“There is a mission briefing downstairs in an hour and a half. At Agent Romanoff’s request, the briefing is in-person, resulting in the building’s personnel volume being in fact 62.6% higher than average for 1:28 PM on a Tuesday.” That was FRIDAY-speak for ‘you’re not crazy.’ 

“Am I privy to the mission objective?”

“It is compliant with your clearance for me to tell you that there was an explosion in a chemical plant near Omaha last night, with foul play and future incidents suspected.”

“Do they think the culprits are domestic or imports?”

“I’m afraid that is a question for a S.H.I.E.L.D. representative.”

“Hm. Big meeting.” You glanced around the pantry as you restocked the flour. You had some extra time before you needed to prep dinner, especially if part or all of the team might be gone on a job before dinnertime. Somewhere around your ribs, you felt that pang you always got when the team was hard at work and you stayed home, sitting on your ass. With a healthy dollop of self-deprecating humor, you announced, “Welp, the world is burning. Guess I’ll make cookies, then.”

While they zoomed around saving lives, you watched heated peanut butter lazily dribble into your cookie dough mixture. That was how it went. While they dodged bullets, you waited for yeast to rise and water to boil. Time ticked by while custards set, while filets marinated, while the herbs and rare plant clippings Pietro stole you slowly grew roots in glass jars on your bedroom windowsill. You had never enjoyed the zooming around or the dodging bullets, but you felt guilty for not doing it anymore. It was never going to be an easy adjustment from agent to cook, and sometimes being here in the tower only made it more difficult.

Just under an hour later, when half of the peanut butter spritz cookies were already piped, baked, and out of the oven, you heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. “How do you know she’s there?” came a male voice.

“Smell the air, kid,” said Tony.

The sound of a long inhale accompanied the last footsteps carrying the interlopers over the threshold to the living area. “Ahh.” The exhaling voice was familiar.

You propped your mixing bowl of raspberry jelly filling (it was really jam, technically, but jelly sounded so much better in the name) on your hip as you turned to the door. “Burns!”

“Dorsey!” Agent Burns left Tony behind to sweep into your space eagerly, but faltered at the last step, flexing his right hand as though unsure whether to hug you or shake your hand. As former coworkers, it could go either way.

You grinned fondly, having missed his particular blend of competence and barely-there social awkwardness. It, of course, was a nice complement to your own social awkwardness. Which meant you didn’t really know whether to go for the hug or the handshake either. Shooting him a small, self-aware grin, you set your mixing bowl on the counter, wiped your hands clean on your apron, and stuck out your hand for a warm handshake. You hoped the eye contact and your mutual indecision saved the handshake from feeling too impersonal.

You squeezed his hand a little to seal the deal. “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” you smiled, tilting your head back to get a good look at how the years had treated him. Still Burns. Still cute. 

Sure, Lee Burns was unassuming in his S.H.I.E.L.D. getup when he was surrounded by the literal goddamn Avengers, but considered on his own he was quite easy on the eyes. You would describe him as ‘network television nerd handsome,’ which was to say, almost too handsome to pass for a nerd. And Burns wasn’t even so much a nerd as he was clean-cut and intellectually inclined. Maybe that qualified for nerdy, you weren’t the best judge yourself. It had always befuddled you that he wasn’t tied down to someone already. No accounting for taste, you supposed.

He dimpled. “I hoped you would be, but I wasn’t sure. My first excuse to come up here since I heard Stark managed to get you back.”

At the mention of Tony, you glanced over to the man in question to find him inspecting the kitchen nose-first for a snack. “Cooling tray by the stove. You’ll want a napkin,” you told him, indicating the assortment of grape jelly-filled peanut butter spritz cookies. You were filling half with grape jelly, half with raspberry. The grape batch weren’t finished being assembled yet and you hadn’t even started on the raspberry ones, but it would be naive to imagine you could make Tony wait. Also naive to imagine he wouldn’t immediately take an overzealous bite making jam spilling out the back of a sandwich cookie and onto his designer tie, putting him in a pissy mood for the remainder of the afternoon.

With Tony occupied, you refocused on your old friend. You weren’t sure whether by ‘up here’ Burns meant the penthouse of Avengers Tower or New York, since S.H.I.E.L.D. had him travelling a lot. “I can’t believe it’s been two years,” you said wistfully. 

“Everyone misses you. I miss you,” he added shyly. “You could have emailed, you know.”

Guilty and uncertain, your hands unconsciously sought out the mixing bowl for something to do. As you mixed the raspberry jam filling to a smoother consistency, you swallowed down your remorse from cutting everyone out of your life. It was a whole lot easier to pretend it didn’t actually affect them when you still weren’t interacting with any of them. “So could you,” you deflected, trying to keep your tone as light as Burns’.

He dipped his chin to meet your eyes, his own sparkling indulgently. “I did.”

Your spoon stuttered in the bowl. “Oh! Oh, sorry. I’m so sorry, Burns, I changed my email. I—”

“You don’t have to explain, Bea. I didn’t take it personally.”

You grimaced anyways. It hadn’t been personal. But it hadn’t been accidental, either. There were only so many condolences you had been able to field at the time. You’d hit your limit almost immediately. Even the most well-meaning message from a friend in the deparmtent only served to remind you of what you had been desperately trying to forget.

“Well, I did,” Tony griped through a mouthful of cookies. He was on the couch checking his messages. Clint had apparently also stolen in at some point, and was munching on a sandwich cookie of his own in the corner.

“You didn’t even read my Christmas cards, hypocrite,” you countered. Turning back to Burns, you tried to make amends. “Here, pass your phone over. I’ll add the new address.”

As he unlocked his phone, you grabbed one of the grape jelly cookies and handed it to him in exchange for the phone. “Trade you.”

His eyes lingered on your face as he bit into the sweet. It seemed like he meant it when he said he’d missed you. That felt… really nice, honestly. 

“Burns,” you snorted when scrolled through his contacts lists. “You misspelled my name.”

“Huh?”

“Look,” you thrust the phone into his face. “It says ‘Bae Dorsey.’ My name’s three letters and you misspelled it,” you laughed. 

“Oh, uh.”

You ribbed him, “I’m glad national security doesn’t ride on your attention to detail.”

“Shut up,” he was blushing. Hard. 

“I can’t eat around this shit,” Tony complained and took a plate of cookies with him, ostensibly to eat in his lab until the meeting.

“What, you got a baby bunny allergy?” Natasha cracked as he passed her. She was leaning in the doorway like she’d been there for a while. You had no idea what they were on about, but you’d given up on understanding half of her and Tony’s banter years ago. Hmm… Hadn’t Natasha said something about Burns the other day, or were you making that up?

“More like I got enough of The Oblivious Show its first season. No reboot necessary, thanks.” And he was gone, muttering something about _Roseanne_ under his breath.

You frowned in the direction Tony disappeared before shrugging it off. When you turned back to the kitchen, Burns’ face was flushed tomato red. “Are you okay? You don’t have a peanut allergy do you?”

“No,” he coughed. “No, I’m fine.”

“Get it together, Burns. You’ve got a briefing to lead in half an hour,” Natasha commented, not quite meanly but not quite nicely either, as she found a seat at the kitchen island. Their tenure at S.H.I.E.L.D. had overlapped for a while but they never became particularly close. It seemed to take a rare sort of person to capture Natasha’s interest in any arena.

“Leading it?” you blinked. “So it’s a domestic terrorism case?” Over his career, Burns had veered into a special focus on clandestine cell systems in the US, like radical militant groups and cults. It told you a lot about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s read on the situation if they had Burns coordinating the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s response.

“We think,” Natasha answered. “Sleepy, do we have oat milk?” She seemed more interested in an afternoon snack than Agent Burns’ presence or factory explosions.

You were pouring her a glass when a familiar bluish contrail streaked into the room. 

“Americans and peanut butter,” Pietro remarked from behind you, already halfway through a cookie. He tossed the other half in the air and caught it with his mouth. “But they are good, _somnorosule.”_ He was getting crumbs in his stubble and on his black zip-up jacket, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Save some for the meeting,” you told him firmly, trying not to look at him too long. You scooped raspberry filling into a piping bag, doubting you could assemble cookies quicker than this group could make them disappear. At this point, there wouldn’t be any left for the briefing. 

Pietro lounged against the fridge, briefly squinting in Burns’ direction. “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said, pointing at Burns with a cookie. “We have met, no?”

“Special Agent Burns,” Burns supplied. “Clandestine Cell Surveillance and Covert Ops. Good to see you again.”

Pietro awarded him a nod and returned to his cookie. 

Belatedly, you remembered to pass Natasha her oat milk. When you caught sight of her, you blinked. Upon Pietro’s entrance, Natasha’s entire demeanor had transformed. It was subtle, but something about her body language broadcast that she had switched modes from social to predatory, as though she’d scented blood in the water.

“Covert Ops like Bea,” Natasha explained, regarding Pietro from under her lashes. “If I recall, they worked very well together. Didn’t you?”

You shrugged and were about to give a lukewarm answer like ‘sure,’ when your eyes landed on the fond little smile blooming on Burns’ face. “Bea was great in the field,” he said with a wistful kind of sincerity that made your stomach feel funny. “No one ever saw her coming. You’re so good at flying low and then getting exactly what you came for.”

“Was, maybe,” you choked dubiously, avoiding his eyes. Praise made you uncomfortable. 

“You’d never know she was a field agent,” Burns told Pietro earnestly. “Fit seamlessly with the desk agents. Quiet, funny, always had her paperwork on time, did her own research, helped out when she didn’t have to.”

“I was a doormat,” you clarified under your breath.

“Everyone loved her,” Burns concluded, undaunted.

Pietro was eyeing Burns very carefully under his thick brows. “... Everyone?” he squinted, and the question could have been mistaken for casual but it felt pointed.

“Then she got bumped up to Avengers liaison, because you Avengers get everything,” Burns joked.

… And then she got bumped from being Avengers liaison, lost her powers, and became a cagey, avoidant walking insomniac disaster, you finished for him mentally.

“You know…” Natasha leaned her chin on a deceptively lazy looking palm on the kitchen counter, looking every inch the web-perched spider calmly toying with its prey. “You got cute, Burns. Sort of an Agent Myers thing going on.” For some reason she cut her eyes to Pietro after saying so.

“Nat, don’t tease the agents,” Clint called from the sink. 

“It’s not teasing if it’s true,” she smirked, all throaty voice and nonchalance. Sometimes it was hard to believe you and Natasha Romanoff were from the same species. Allegedly, anyways. “Back me up, Sleepy, didn’t Burns get cute?”

You frowned consideringly between Natasha and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in question wondering about her motives for asking. Burns had always been cute, this wasn’t news. Unfortunately for him, he was cute in a college boy way that made him look like a perpetual rookie, but that could be used to his advantage. Why was Natasha suddenly paying attention now when she hadn’t been five minutes ago?

“Bea, do you make black bread?” Pietro cut in before you were forced to figure out how to respond to Natasha’s question. “I am dreaming of black bread all week.”

In spite of his entitled tone, you smiled at him, grateful you’d been inadvertently rescued from answering Natasha’s question. After the plant heist, you’d been trying your best to keep some distance between you and him for your own sake, but it was impossible to pretend you weren’t charmed by the fact that though everyone around him was dressed for a board meeting, Pietro looked like he was on his way back from a track meet.

“I bet Burns knows how to make his own bread,” Natasha crooned before you could answer. “Don’t you, Burns.”

“Ah,” Burns coughed at the other end of the island, clearly still off kilter. “Actually I’m pretty hopeless with that stuff. And I definitely don’t make bread like Bea does.”

“See? He says he is hopeless,” Pietro repeated helpfully with a quick hand gesture indicating the man beside him. It was like he and Natasha were having their own separate conversation, the point of which you couldn’t even begin to interpret.

“Well, maybe he’s got somebody to make it for him,” Natasha countered. “You got a girlfriend, Burns?”

“Is this hazing?” Burns wondered aloud feebly.

“You’ve been with S.H.I.E.L.D. for over five years already,” you reminded him helpfully as your oven timer went off. The time for hazing him had long passed. You took the second batch of spritz cookies out of the oven admiring how the bake had turned the piped ridges of their swirled shell shapes a soft golden color.

“I don’t have somebody to make bread for me,” Burns clarified for Natasha. 

Pietro leaned back against the fridge with a challenging gleam in his eye. “I do,” he said. You weren’t sure if he was talking to Burns or to you since he took a long look at one of you then the other. 

You raised a dubious brow while you transferred the cookie-laden parchment paper to a cooling rack. “Whitney knows how to use yeast?” Whitney was Pietro’s most recent lucky date, a ballerina who—at the risk of feeding a stereotype—looked like she would call a priest if she found a loaf of bread in her home.

Pietro tilted his head cockily. “I wasn’t talking about Whitney,” he drawled, sinking his teeth into the ‘w’s in that distracting accent of his. 

“Moved on already, what a shock,” you observed drily. It took a few vicious squeezes to get the grape jelly’s piping bag back into shape so you could finish assembling that half of the batch.

Pietro frowned like he was confused and weighing his next move, but he was interrupted before he could explain further.

“Tony had a point,” Clint said to Natasha mysteriously before quitting the kitchen with his drink and two sandwich cookies in hand. 

Natasha huffed one of her barely-there laughs at his retreating back before narrowing her eyes back on Burns across the kitchen island. “So you’re an Ivy League guy, steady government job, good looking—”

“Do I need to file a claim with HR?” Burns interrupted lightly, adjusting his glasses. 

“See, you’re even funny,” Natasha purred, never missing a beat. “How’s a funny, cute, employed guy like you single? Afraid of commitment? Wandering eye?” She stabbed a brutally pointed look in Pietro’s direction. “Sneaker collection?”

Pietro scowled. Natasha was really poking the bear. You gathered that they were somehow still fighting over their confrontation in the hallway last week. Though how Natasha coming onto Agent Burns was part of that, you totally failed to understand. What was she trying to accomplish? It was like her mouth couldn’t decide whether she was wingmanning for Burns or hitting on him, and it was gruesomely awkward to witness.

Oblivious to their sparring, Burns shifted from foot to foot. If you hadn’t been trained alongside Burns to read body language, you might not have noticed him carefully avoiding your eyes. “No, I’m not afraid of commitment. To the right person,” he added with a shy glance in your direction.

Oh, you thought, a signal you recognized! A signal for help! “Text S.O.S. if you need a rescue from Agent Romanoff.”

He grinned fondly, looking slightly more at ease.

“You have her number?” Pietro asked Burns sharply, a crease forming between his thick brows. His performance mesh shirt stretched taut over his chest when he crossed his arms.

Burns turned to look Pietro over like he’d never seen him before. He was a smart agent, great at reading people; you wondered what Burns saw from behind those glasses when he looked at Pietro Maximoff. He responded coolly, “Don’t you?”

Pietro’s eye twitched and he looked away. 

“Who cares who’s got whose numbers. The important thing is what you do with the numbers you’ve got,” Natasha said cryptically, and you got the odd impression that she was delivering a sermon just for Pietro. This was definitely still about the dating around and all the girls in Pietro’s phone. Natasha slid her eyes to poor Burns then, drawling, “I’ll bet Agent Burns knows what to do with what he’s got.”

“Um.”

“Dear lord,” you muttered to yourself. Enough was enough. To Burns, you stage-whispered, “Blink S.O.S. if you need a rescue from Agent Romanoff.”

This time, he took you up on the out. Burns blinked Morse code behind his cute glasses with a playful grin. Blinking the long dashes of the 'O' made it look so much like he was batting his eyelashes at you that you had to laugh.

“Come on, Nat, let’s please lay off one of the few sane, likeable agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has,” you said, fully aware that this was the Black fucking Widow and you couldn’t _make_ her do anything.

Pietro’s eyes were darting between you and Burns furiously like he was simultaneously watching a tennis match and trying to figure out its rules. For some reason, what he saw made him bristle. “And being likeable is so important, ah?” he snapped.

“Oh, Maximoff, looks like you’ve got some _jelly_ on you,” Natasha jabbed, gesturing smug fingers at her own face to demonstrate.

He scowled ferociously, wiping his face lightning quick. If Natasha had been wearing shoes with laces, you strongly suspected she would have stood to find them tied together. 

‘What’s going on,’ Burns mouthed silently to you.

‘I have no idea,’ you mouthed back with wide eyes.

 _“Ce spun ei?”_ Pietro demanded, frowning at Natasha. You had no idea what he said, but it sounded like he had reached the end of his patience.

“I am the last person you need to be looking to for help, Maximoff,” Natasha drawled without an ounce of sympathy for Pietro. _“I did warn you.”_

Fire lit up Pietro’s blue eyes under dark brows. _“Aceasta este vina ta?”_ he hissed. You were so far out of the loop that you needed a passport to get back in, but it sounded like a fight was about to break out. 

“Sorry, I don’t speak Sokovian,” Natasha lied placidly, examining her nails.

Pietro exhaled through his nostrils like he wanted to kill something. 

Undaunted, Natasha plastered a grin on and turned to you. “It’s nice to see you smiling and laughing in here, Bea. Burns, you should come around more often. Seems like all Bea gets in this place is ordered around and annoyed. She deserves to feel valued, doesn’t she?” Natasha’s narrowed eyes cut to Pietro. 

When Pietro’s eyes broke contact with her and hit you, his frown deepened even further for some reason. His gaze swung to Burns, then back to you.

“They not treating you well, Dorsey? Want me to tack another HR complaint onto mine for you?” Burns dimpled at you.

“Oh, I think everybody is as polite as they’re capable of being…” you hedged diplomatically with a devious quirk hidden at the end of your lips, trying in vain to lighten the mood from Pietro and Natasha’s squabbling. The Avengers’ manners had been a running joke in S.H.I.E.L.D. since the program’s inception.

Natasha snorted. “Not saying much. Pretty sure _Fifty Worst Dates_ over here’s best behavior is still a solid HR claim any day of the week.”

Pietro didn’t have to understand the movie reference to get that he was being disparaged in a big way. In most cases, you knew for a fact that he was being annoying to you on purpose, so it kind of boggled you that Natasha’s aspersions would actually wound him. But wounded was exactly what he appeared to be, blinking rapidly at you, not Natasha like he ought to be. When his stormy eyes returned to Natasha, his nostrils flared, his forehead creased, and his jaw clenched tight. From injured to angry, just like that. You were witnessing a volcano that was about to blow up right in Natasha’s face. 

“You have a problem with me—?!” he started off at a yell, but you cut him off.

“Oh look!” you said with artificial brightness. “It’s just about time for your meeting, guys! You probably need to go prepare your presentation materials, don’t you, Burns?”

Glancing between the three people around him, Burns said, “Yeah. Yes, I think I should do that. Thanks. Maybe I’ll,” he paused to lick his lips and tear his gaze away from Pietro’s, “I’ll come by the kitchen afterwards.”

“Sounds good,” you smiled. 

After he left for the elevators, you turned to Pietro intending to ask what his damage was only to find him staring at you with this weird frustrated, hurt look you’d never seen on his face before. It was oddly… vulnerable. 

He seemed to shake himself, sending the white fringe on his forehead flying. With a much more sedate tone, he told you, “Thank you for the cookies. I will… stop bothering you.” 

And he was gone.

You took the time to blink and readjust your grip on your piping bag before turning to Natasha. “What the hell was that?”

Natasha gave a loose, disinterested shrug. Now that it was just the two of you in the kitchen, she had magically become a civilized human again. “So, _do_ you make black bread?” she asked casually as though nothing had just happened. What was it with Russians and black bread?

“Really? You’re gonna ask me that like you didn’t just personally orchestrate the most awkward fifteen minutes of my life?” You squeezed too hard on the raspberry piping bag and had to remove the excess jam onto another peanut butter spritz cookie.

“I have a thankless job,” Natasha sighed to herself.

The non-sequitur made you frown at her. Instead of asking what she meant, you simply pointed out, “You have, like, three statues devoted to you.”

She quirked a dry eyebrow and revised her statement, “Alright, I have a thankless _hobby.”_

You frowned at her incomprehensible rambling, but decided to leave her be and focus on finishing filling your sandwich cookies before the briefing was due to start. You supposed Natasha Romanoff of all people had earned the right to go insane, and you would let her do so in peace. 

“Utterly thankless,” she drawled behind your back. “But you’ll thank me one day.”

*

_Pork and shiitake dumplings._

In the end, the Omaha situation only required part of the team’s attention. Scarlet Witch was a must, but with Captain America, Black Widow, and Vision already following Agent Burns out west, there was no need for Quicksilver to accompany her. 

They left four days ago and Pietro was still being an exceedingly poor sport about being left behind. Or, he was definitely grumpy about _something_ because he’s hardly said five words to you all week and, strangest of all, all those words were pleasantries like “hello,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome”—which was a phrase you hadn’t thought Pietro even _knew_ in English.

On the days you were working, you never saw him in the kitchen which was beyond unusual. But you knew he was around and not starving because at dinnertime, his portion (1 Pietro portion = 3 Tony portions = 0.5 Thor portions) would vanish before dinner was served and in the daytime, food would frequently disappear when you weren’t looking. It was unnerving to remember that Pietro could come and go quickly enough to be invisible, the sound of a cabinet closing only giving him away once he was already far away. It kept you looking over your sleepy sloped shoulders all afternoon while you prepared pork and shiitake dumplings. The potstickers froze well, so though you wouldn’t have the usual number of people dining here tonight, you committed yourself to making a bulk batch. Which ought to have been easier with no one bothering you, but the kitchen felt so quiet.

Horrible as it was to admit, especially when you’d wanted space from Pietro after Brooklyn, it made you sad not having him around. He was terrible, but he was funny and the company was refreshing sometimes. Plus, as hypocritical as it was, it kind of pissed you off that he was avoiding you. Maybe he got bored of you at last or found someone more fun to annoy.

Similarly, though you’d been saying for months that you didn’t want to become dependent on having Wanda as a back-up sleep aid, you weren’t enjoying Wanda being out of town. Because you liked her company obviously, but also for sleep reasons. It disturbed you to realize how you had come to rely on her safety net even though you’d tried to resist. This week, you had no back-up plan beyond sleeping pills. The way you claimed you wanted things to be. Apparently you were in the midst of a Careful What You Wish For episode in the TV show of your life. Wonderful. 

Slowly but surely, you minced, mixed, and wrapped your way to an industrial-sized army of dumplings, one platoon chilling in the fridge for tonight, four other platoons destined for the freezer. Once, you heard a cabinet shut, but you never actually saw anyone the whole time you worked. It was surprising how much of a difference it made, having a fraction of the Avengers gone. The penthouse felt empty. At least Natasha and Pietro couldn’t fight if Natasha wasn’t here. When you found yourself listlessly leaning on the kitchen counter, trying to master the goldfish-shaped dumplings you’d seen online with peas for eyes just to see if you could, you had to acknowledge that you might as well just lie down. There’s no telling how long you’d been sitting there half-asleep, near-catatonic, making sad, deformed little goldfish in the pindrop silence of Tony’s cavernous kitchen-living area floorplan. The lack of sleep and companionship was getting to you. You had officially hit loopy-tired.

After hanging up your apron, you shook out your v-neck sweater, the soft, lightweight one you’d found at a vintage store. It was prone to slipping off your shoulder, but it had such a cute design and offbeat color scheme that you didn’t even care. Shoes abandoned, your socked feet tucked between the cushions, you settled down in the crook of the big sectional in the heart of the living area’s base level. Your mind drifted but sleep never danced any closer. 

So quiet. An indeterminate amount of time later, you heard someone come in through the entryway to the kitchen.

You poked your head up to see over the back of the sectional. It was Pietro, edging into the kitchen slowly at first, then normally as he saw that no one was there. You tucked your chin over the couch cushion to rest your fatigue-heavy head as your lidded eyes watched him sneak around. If you hadn’t been so slaphappy, you probably would have left him in peace. As it was, you couldn’t resist calling to him drily, “Don’t worry, the coast is clear.” 

He whipped around, quickly hiding his caught-out expression under a casual one and leaning back against the kitchen island. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Clearly.”

He glanced around the quiet vastness of the multi-layered living area. “Were you resting? I didn’t mean to bother.”

“Yeah, because god forbid you _bother_ me.” That was, like, his favorite thing to do. “What is up with you this week, you’re being weird.”

“You look tired, _somnorosule._ Go back to resting.”

You bit your cheek and slumped back to lying hidden on the sectional with a huff. “You’ll have to tell me eventually.”

“Tell you what?” Pietro asked reluctantly. His voice sounded like he was drawing nearer.

“Why y’re mad at me.”

“I am not mad at you.” He perched himself carefully on the arm of an adjacent sofa, only close enough to hear your sleep-soft voice. 

“Y’re avoiding me.”

“I am not.”

“Well you’re _something,”_ you insisted. “Y’re all ignoring me and being weird and polite. I give you the chance to be a master thief with me on the greatest plant heist of all time, make you dairy free, sugar free ice cream, and the cold shoulder is the thanks I get.” Maybe if you made light of it, he’d feel comfortable enough to give you some kind of explanation.

“Shoulder?” Pietro echoed to himself.

“English,” you mumbled as your only explanation. You were too tired to break down idioms today.

With a heavy sigh, Pietro launched himself from the sofa arm he’d been seated on forward onto your sectional, settling near where your feet were curled up. You felt the movement more than saw it. “I am only trying not to bother you. Lately I realize I have barged into your life, your day when you do not ask for it. When you don’t want. I am trying to be more… considerate.” The way he said the word suggested it was a word Wanda had taught him. 

You propped yourself up on an elbow to get another look at him, heedless of the fact that your nap hair was probably absurd. “What brought this on?”

Pietro only eyed you cagily and returned to tapping his fingers invisibly quick against his elbow. From the curve of his dark stubble, he appeared to be biting his cheek. 

You collapsed back onto the cushions. If you’d been more awake, you might have been able to connect the dots between Pietro’s weirdness and Natasha baiting him last week, but you were too fuzzy. You were way too out of it to be having deep conversations. And you really didn’t want to tell Pietro that you actually quite enjoyed his company and his insights and his facial symmetry—see, even in your own mind you were woefully unprepared to present yourself properly. Pitiful. Instead of any of that, you simply told him, “I like you bothering me better than I like you being distant and polite.”

It was kind of sweet (if belated) that he was worried about bugging you. The sweetness was partially spoiled when a familiar cheekiness returned to his tone. “Sorry, what was that? Say again?”

You rolled your eyes. “I like you bothering me. Happy?”

“Mm…” he hummed noncommittally, thinking it over. “I don’t know. For being so mean, you are kind in inconvenient ways. In Sokovian, we say _‘mulțumești lumea.’_ To please the world. A people-pleaser. It is probable you would lie to be kind, to be easy, even if I upset you.”

Not the first time you’d been accused of people-pleasing, probably with good reason. “You’re upsetting me now by making me admit we’re friends over and over. There’s your honesty,” you grumbled. 

“Everybody else has your number but me, you know that? Even Wanda and not me,” he said like it was proof positive that you secretly hated him. 

“Did you ever ask me?” you muttered, lips mushed into the pillow. “You never asked me.”

There was a long, significant silence from his end of the sectional. Eventually, Pietro asked quietly, “What is your number?”

With a hidden grin, you sleepily rattled off the numbers in a single breath.

“Slow down,” he admonished as he pulled out his phone, and he sounded like he was smiling. So much for space.

You laughed inwardly; ‘Slow down,’ said Pietro Maximoff. “Too fast for you? Shoe’s on the other foot, huh?”

“Shoes?”

You sighed. “English,” the two of you said in unison. You would have giggled if you hadn’t been so tired.

“Sleepy?” That was Clint’s voice. Distant. From the upper level, maybe. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”

Great, you thought, exhaustion that could be seen from a storey away. The look of the season. “Just tired. Verrrrry tired,” you told him wherever he was.

“You gonna be alright?” Clint called from above. Oh, it probably looked weird that you were prostrate on the couch in the middle of the afternoon with someone watching over you, like you’d fainted or something.

“‘M good. Dumplings tonight. Salads. Real tasty,” you promised.

“How long since you slept?” Pietro asked.

“Long time,” you mumbled.

“You don’t have to come in when you are so tired,” he told you insistently. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you teased him from the couch cushions. Left unsaid was the fact that you wouldn’t be any better rested staying home from work.

“For the last time, I am not avoiding you!” Pietro said with exasperation.

“What’s this?” Clint asked. He hoisted himself over the railing and landed on the main level of the living room. What was it about stairs, you wondered drowsily. What made superheroes allergic to using them and supervillains addicted to descending them at a glacial pace?

“Just helpin’ Pietro through a crisis of confidence.” You confided in a loopy whisper, “He thinks nobody likes him.”

“Well, we can’t have him wondering about that,” Clint said sympathetically. Strolling over to claim a chair near the sectional you were lying across, Clint finished, “No need to worry whether it’s true, Speedy. I’ll confirm it: Nobody likes you.”

“This joke would be better if you did not have a son named for me,” Pietro returned.

Your sleepy head recoiled on the cushion, sure you must have misheard him. “You have a what now?”

“A lot happened since you left, Sleepy,” Clint said calmly.

“Pietro’s been here like six months, how th’hell can you have a kid named after’im already. Where’s your kid named after me?” you feigned offended indignation.

“You know Maximoff. He moves fast. He’s done all sortsa stuff that would surprise you.”

You snorted in an unladylike way that would have embarrassed you if you’d been fully aware of yourself. “After seeing him dress up like Cupid and fly ‘round New York on Valentines Day, I’m not sure anything’d surprise me. And that was the first thing I ever saw him do,” you added for emphasis.

“I’m right here,” Pietro grumbled. 

Your eyes slipped shut on the couch pillow. Bickering with Pietro was more fun than you’d given it credit for before. “Good, then listen: That was dumb.”

“I was drunk!” Pietro exclaimed like he’d had this argument dozens of times already. Knowing Wanda, he probably had.

“I mean, you being Cupid never made sense to begin with,” you muttered to your pillow like he hadn’t interrupted you. What a nice, cool pillow.

“Oh?” Pietro challenged, arms folded over his chest.

“No,” you answered softly, absentminded and lost in your train of thought. “Clint would obviously be Cupid.”

Pietro’s cocky facade glitched and sputtered. “The old man?!”

Clint gave you an approving nod with a click of his tongue. 

Pietro pointed at Clint, just to be _extra_ sure he understood you. “Him?”

“Yeah.” You’d be lying if you said you weren’t sleepily enjoying the wounded look on Pietro’s face, just a little. “Because arrows.”

Clint mimed shooting off an arrow at you from his perch on his chair. “Give it up, Maximoff. Bea knows a real man when she sees one.” He punctuated his empty taunting with a quick wink in your direction.

If you weren’t so loopy, you might have noticed these things going on, but you were mostly still caught up in your musings and your limited knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology. The men were still bickering when you started mumbling to yourself. “I mean, if anything, you’re Mercury. That just makes eight different kinds of sense.”

The newfound quiet in the room made you glance up. You found Pietro frowning at you, eyes bright under his sooty lashes. “What are you talking about?”

You rubbed your tired eyes and snuggled further into the embrace of the corner of the couch. “Well, chemically, quicksilver is mercury. Hg. And that’s you, so,” you broke off with a yawn and let your heavy eyelids shutter. “Plus Mercury the god was, you know… speedy. Hermes. Messenger god, cool shoes.”

“This sounds like me,” Pietro agreed, voice softer and lower than usual. Soft and warm like the couch. You hadn’t slept in so long.

You nodded, but mostly to push some stray hairs from your face and nestle said face just so into the throw pillow. “Dunno why you’d wanna be Cupid. ‘S’just a chubby baby with a magic toy,” you mumbled.

“Hey!” Clint protested faintly in the background. 

“Shh,” someone hissed at Clint from above you. Was someone stroking your hair out of your face? Or was that Hypnos finally come to grant you entry to the land of dreams without pills or mind control? It felt so nice. Reality quietly dissolved around you and you gratefully slipped under.

*

_Minestrone with fresh sourdough bread, apple goat cheese salad, and a pear tart with miso caramel._

Rainy days required soup and you were happy to oblige. The team was home from Nebraska, having foiled at least one other factory bombing. You didn’t have the details, you just knew they’d all come back safe and sound.

The air in the kitchen burbled with the sound of rain against glass and the minestrone bubbling away on the stove. It just needed a few more additions before you could fetch the sourdough from its first proof to knead it, leaving the soup to simmer until supper. Bake the bread, prep the last of the soup and salad ingredients, make the crust for the pear tart, prep its filling while letting the pâte brisée chill, bake the tart. You had plenty of time. At the kitchen island, Wanda hummed and lazily flipped the page of her book with her mind.

It was raining hard enough to make the floor-to-ceiling windows of Tony’s penthouse look like it was going through a carwash. The spectacle of it made you want to run around the helipad in the downpour, but you worried you’d be swept away. And you were wearing white. It wasn’t the right time. If you waited, there would be a right time for running through the rain; a time when you didn’t have bread to bake and pears to slice. Still, you imagined it would feel so pleasant… 

_“Bună ziua!”_

Pietro loped into the kitchen with his white hair slicked back, body drenched and dripping rainwater everywhere. His eyes were bright and gave the impression he was immensely proud of himself, like dogs are when they accomplish their vital goal of Submersing Themselves in the Thing You Didn’t Want Them to Submerse Themselves in. God only knows where Pietro had been, but he’d certainly enjoyed himself. 

Whenever he came to the kitchen straight from a run, he was invariably looking for a snack. There was an overabundance of anjou pears you’d bought hand over fist at the farmers market this morning because they were so beautifully ripe. The exact amount of fruit you’d hauled home eluded you, but it was certainly more than you would need to fill a tart. You wordlessly tossed a pear at his head and let him be pleased with himself for catching it, smugly taking a bite before your second pear caught him by surprise and socked him right in the cheekbone. You snickered at him as he sputtered. He took his defeat with grace, plush mouth stretching into a grin despite himself as he rubbed his cheek. Wanda just rolled her eyes and kept to her book.

“Good run?” you asked. You were relieved that after a conversation on the couch (the details of which you couldn’t quite remember), things had gone back to normal between you and Pietro. Or, as normal as anything related to Pietro could be. 

“The best,” he beamed, taking another bite out of his pear and looking utterly at peace with his what where and when. It was impossible to tell whether it was water or pear juice dripping off his stubbled chin. You should have found that messy and slightly gross, but you didn’t. Why was this suddenly your type? Why was everything about Pietro abruptly what you were into when he was so unabashedly unlike anyone you’d ever dated before?

“I was tempted to go for a run out there myself,” you admitted to him.

“You should,” he said easily, giving you a onceover. His thumb was running back and forth over the second pear. It looked so small in his hands.

“Busy,” you responded with a regretful smile when the truth was that it was really just a hair too impulsive for you. “Next time, maybe,” you said and maybe you even meant it.

“Deal,” he said with a wolfish white grin and _oh._ You really wished you hadn’t noticed the sliver of his tongue that was visible as he lapped juice from the pear before taking his next bite. That was going to haunt you in the best worst way. Pivoting slightly to face your measuring cups, you did your best to return your focus to portioning out the right amount of cannellini beans to add to the soup.

“What time is dinner, _somnorosule?_ I’m thinking it is my turn for a nap.”

“You’ve got plenty of time. It’s soup so you can come and get it whenever you want. I haven’t started on the pear tart yet, but it should be out before seven.”

“Perrrfect,” he smiled gratefully. His voice was still a little airy from panting. You could almost see the impending sleep coming over him like an aura enveloping his body from his dripping hair to the grey fabric plastered to his chest by rain all the way down to his soggy running shoes. He would sleep instantly and well, you could tell; the kind of sleep that only came after physical exertion.

You were still in awe of your own nap a few days ago. Sleep almost never came to you so easily. After you’d woken up just in time to steam the dumplings feeling ten times better, you’d made a record of everything you’d eaten and done that day in case something in there was the key you were missing. It was almost like the good old days, sleeping anywhere, anytime you felt like it. With all this rain and the cozy smell of soup and fresh bread, you’d love a nap yourself. But you wouldn’t begrudge Pietro his nap out of jealousy, especially once you remembered how troubled his own sleep could be.

 _“Adio!”_ With a wave of a pear, he made his exit.

“Sweet dreams,” you called. He shot you a fingergun and strolled out of sight. Watching his retreating back, you commented to Wanda, “He’s walking normally more often now. Have you noticed that? When I first started working here, he’d use superspeed to itch his nose.”

Eyes on her book, Wanda raised a lone eyebrow. “He thinks slower around you, too,” was all she would offer.

Was that an insult or a good thing, you wondered as you pulled out the risen bread dough. With flour-drenched fervor, you smacked it on the counter and dug into the sourdough with the heels of your palms, fighting a smile all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your old buddy Burns is basically Agent Myers from Hellboy in all the ways that count, aka A Very Nice Young Man Who is Pining Up the Wrong Tree (poor guy). Can someone explain to me why loopy flirting is so much fun to write? Will I ever write lucid flirting again?? Will y/n ever realize that 'bae' isn't a typo?? Can I go a full chapter without comparing an Avenger to a misbehaving dog?? Stay tuned to find out! (But probably no.)
> 
> Translations:  
>  _somnorosule_ \- sleepy/sleepyhead  
>  _Ce spun ei?_ \- What are they saying?  
>  _Aceasta este vina ta?_ \- This is your fault?  
>  _mulțumești lumea_ \- a people-pleaser  
>  _Bună ziua!_ \- Good afternoon!  
>  _Adio!_ \- So long!


	7. Chapter 7

You were bickering with Pietro in the kitchen again. It was hard not to be bickering with Pietro. He must have been doing it on purpose, riling you up just to watch your face scrunch up, your ears turn red. It couldn’t be an accident, the way he would consistently back you into a corner until you snapped at him. 

You yelled something about his impulse control, tiny yet incandescent with rage. When you were this worked up, your freckles twisted around like stars spinning into new constellations, ones that forecasted catastrophe. You stamped your foot but Pietro didn’t take the hint. He advanced on you instead until your back was flush with the countertop and his front was flush with your soft brown apron. 

The atmosphere changed on a dime, suddenly so warm between the two of you. It was like standing in front of an open oven. Pietro was enjoying your stunned silence, you could tell. You somehow felt his complete contentment at towering over you, at making you look at him and only him for a moment instead of flitting around like you didn’t even know he was in the room. 

“Beatrice,” he breathed warm and close. He pronounced it the Italian way. Bay-ah-tree-chay. He said it like it was hot caramel dripping off his lips. 

And then his mouth was on you. It happened so quickly, the jump from argument to embrace. You blinked and his arms were around you. His lips worshipped you. Soft like you remembered. Of course he was a good kisser. Good enough that you were too distracted by the smooth underside of his tongue and the faint taste of gentianella to even notice when exactly Pietro had hoisted you onto the kitchen counter. 

Flour was getting everywhere, but when you pulled back to say so, Pietro spoke first.

“Look what you do to me, _printsessa.”_ With a soft grip on your wrist, he brought your hand to rest on his abdomen, pressed flush to the flat muscle under his navel. Then guided it downward, to where he was straining against his track pants for you.

Flour was the last thing on your mind after that. Pietro’s broad palms went to your knees and you could instantly feel the heat of them because your dress was riding up under your apron. Your knees were bare. He spread them apart so he could stand between, pressing closer and closer to you. 

When he wasn’t cleverly destroying your mouth, he was constantly saying all these pretty, filthy things in Sokovian. His tone was enough to help you guess at their meaning. Hopefully you wouldn’t have to guess long. A hand crept up from your knee and slipped below your apron, under the hem of your dress.

“Bea,” he said. 

You hummed back, overcome. There was flour in your hair.

“Bea,” he repeated. His thumb came to rest on the hot bud of your clit, barely there. “Bea.”

“Bea!”

You blinked your eyes open. The living room was dim with warm lights and sound bleeding in from the kitchen. Idle chatter was interspersed with the sound of crockery and silverware drawers being opened and closed. “Wha?”

“Sorry,” said Natasha, whose hand was gripping your shoulder. “You know I hate waking you, but I don’t want you to miss dinner. Besides, I’d have no control over how Tony would’ve woken you up if I left you here.”

“S’okay,” you murmured, knuckling your eyes. You were only half paying attention to Natasha. That dream, that vivid, vivid out-of-body dream was still trembling through your nerves. And here you were having it on the living room couch in front of everybody. How had that happened? You remembered the sourdough tiring out your arms and the soup needing to simmer for an hour or two. Ah, and so you’d taken an old paperback to the couch for a breather. Rain was still beating down the windows. How long had you been asleep for?

Every time you shut your eyes, all you could see was the vision of you and Pietro on the kitchen counter. You wanted to curl up into a ball of shame and die, but in the current circumstances, the best you could do was sit up and try to straighten out your hair. Your thighs squeezed together and it was utterly impossible to forget about the scene that was playing out in your mind not twenty seconds ago.

“What were you dreaming ‘bout there, Sleepy?” Clint grinned from the island as you stood up. He and Rhodey were putting together a salad.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to fall asleep and leave all this work for you!” you fretted, gesturing at their cutting boards. You also had no intention of answering Clint’s question about your dream. “Hey, Rhodey,” you tacked on belatedly.

“Bea,” he gave you an easy nod.

Clint shrugged, sweeping a pile of chopped almonds into the salad bowl. “Eh, no trouble. Everything but the salad was already good to go.”

“I was going to make a pear tart,” you despaired. The Anjou pears at the farmers market were perfectly ripe and you’d found a new recipe for a pear tart with miso caramel. There was no way you’d have time now. How unprofessional. You rushed over to the fridge to grab your mise en place bowl with all the last minute additions for the soup: lemon juice, pesto, baby spinach.

“You needed the sleep, kiddo. Come get a bowl of soup, it smells delicious.”

It was a kind attitude and a kind offer, but when you glanced at the kitchen counter you were overcome by the memory of the flour in your hair and his heavy hands on your knees and—

With a full-body flush you realized that there was no way you’d be able to sit through a meal across the table from Pietro in this state. Oh god, and you did _not_ want to stick around long enough to find out whether Wanda was here or not. What if she _saw?_ The thought made you physically shudder. What if she’d _seen already?_ Oh _god._

“No, uh, I gotta go.” You dumped the greens, pesto, and lemon juice into the soup pot, giving it a haphazard stir before plopping its lid back on. “Soup’s ready. The sourdough is right there. And there’s an apple and some crumbled goat cheese in the fridge for the salad! Actually, no, use those pears! And the fudgesicles I put in the freezer yesterday should be ready if anyone ends up wanting dessert!” you blurted as you snagged your bag and booked it down the hall.

“Bea?” Clint called after you, sounding confused. “Hey, you left your apron!” 

“Keep it!” and the elevator doors closed. ‘Safe!’ the umpire in your mind barked to riotous inner applause. You escaped into the rain and didn’t look back. 

*

_Pear tart with miso caramel and ginger ice cream._

Facing Pietro was not easy after that. But you couldn’t justify calling in sick or making an obnoxious request to work from home just because of a wet dream. You knew that was your hard stance on the matter because you’d spent the past 24 hours seriously considering it. Like, really seriously considering it.

Everything was normal. Everything was fine. Pick a jacket, catch your ride to work, tie your apron strings, and prep the first thing on your agenda. Pie crust. 

It was all going so well till you had to flour up the counter and roll the dough out. The flashback was instantaneous. Hi-def technicolor.

You were cursed to remember most of your dreams with painstaking clarity, and the one you were trying to forget had started in the middle of you rolling out dough really slowly, bent over the counter with a low-cut dress under your apron, smoothing out the lump of pâte brisée with long, forceful movements. But here was an oddity: That wasn’t even the proper way to roll out pie crust dough. It was only now that you were doing it the proper way, press by press before rolling, that you clocked the inaccuracy in your dream. And then there had been a really detailed part about you washing off the French rolling pin by hand, chewing up your lips and wiping the water off really thoroughly with your fingers instead of drying it with a towel like a sane person. And what was that shit about your freckles and constellations? 

The more you thought about it (and thought about it), the more it seemed that your dream had been as strange as it was humiliating. Clearly, your subconscious had a secret bodice-ripper addiction. Even your own brain was mocking you, now. But, you allowed, of all the ways to be demeaned, one could do worse than wickedly realistic fantasies about bristly jawlines and skilled fingers—

“Good morning, _printsessa!_ ” He zoomed up out of nowhere, contrail shimmering in his wake like a faithful shadow. 

“It’s half-past noon,” you muttered, cursing yourself for going red so quickly and thoroughly just at the sound of his voice. That dream had been so vivid; his voice was so specific in it—

“Then why are you making my breakfast, mm?”

“Slow your roll, the tarts won’t be ready for another hour.” Hopefully he wouldn’t notice you avoiding eye contact as you made indents in the dough with your rolling pin. A quick glance down confirmed that, no, none of your cleavage was peeking over your apron. You would have worn a turtleneck but it was a warm day for April

“So you said yesterday but still here I am, waiting, salivating.”

You flushed at the reminder of your nap, knowing full well he meant nothing by his comment beyond razzing you on your job performance. It was mortifying, having a dream like that when you knew he wasn’t into you. Flirtation was simply his third language. To him, you were a sister he was entitled to annoy at all hours. And judging by the coerced kiss in the getaway car, he must have discovered that flirting was one of the best ways to get a rise out of you. You were in on the joke yet part of you was still falling for it. It was downright insulting that your subconscious couldn’t understand that Pietro was messing with you, that it was getting attached just because he was handsome and secretly helpful and thoughtful and funny and charmingly impetuous… 

“Are these Twenty-Four Hour Tarts? A family recipe, ah?” Pietro ribbed.

“Sorry to make you wait,” you told him, shaking yourself. “It’ll be worth it, though.” Wanting to talk about anything other than yesterday’s ill-advised nap, you changed the subject. “I heard Steve has been making you train with him this week. Tell me how _that’s_ going,” you prompted with a smirk. He took the opening you provided. The complaining was immediate, hilarious, and lasted the two of you until the tarts were fully assembled and in the oven.

All too soon (too soon for his taste because the tarts weren’t ready to eat yet), Pietro had to go be subjected to more of Drill Sergeant Rogers’ cruel whims. You waved him off, laughing to see how he dragged his feet, and got cracking on a batch of granola. Granola production and prep for dinner proceeded while Tony held a spirited conversation with himself at the counter. You supposed it was inevitable, seeing as Tony was without fail lured like a cartoon character by the smell of pastry and seeing as he enjoyed no one’s company so well as his own.

“So I told him, ‘Do I look like the gamma ray I’m talking to you about is the Beck song?’ and he said ‘Sir, I don’t know, we’re talking on the phone,’ so _I_ said…”

Trickling the vanilla extract into the granola mixture made you smile. Someday soon you wouldn’t have to rely on a store-bought extract. The vanilla-like herb you’d swiped from Hugo had only just begun to grow water roots, but soon enough you’d be able to plant it in soil and pick leaves for your cooking. You would’ve been harvesting your own vanilla beans for years if it didn’t require a ten-foot tropical vine to produce at least one flower a year and a month of careful curing to turn the vanilla beans into something worth eating—that was overkill even for _you_. When it was grown, you ought to experiment making syrups and extracts out of the gentianella. Maybe even try infusing gin...

“And I still don’t see why he had to bring the Roomba into it. Seemed to me like the Roomba was the only innocent—or competent—party in the whole cock-up…” Tony was saying, shaking his head between bites. He’d forgone a plate, only needing the tart pan and a fork.

But you weren’t listening. You were distracted, caught in the memory of coming home after that lazy Sunday afternoon of petty larceny and investigating your spoils. Diving into the bag of cuttings to find that Pietro had given you a bouquet of mysteries. So many more than you’d asked for. Big leaves, small leaves, branching, trailing, fragrant, strange. You remembered cleaning and organizing the trimmings by type, slipping the cut ends into jars of water on your windowsill—though you had to move your old golden barrel cactus out of the way to make space (finally coming to terms with the fact that it had, in fact, been dead for some months)—to bask in sunlight while you eagerly pushed yourself nose-first into researching each specimen. It was such a singular emotion, the anticipation and curiosity of discovery. Even Pietro himself had no idea what he’d given you to take, plant, then grow in the seclusion of your bedroom.

By the time the preparations for dinner were complete, you looked up from your trance to notice that Tony had apparently wandered off again at some point, leaving behind only a third of the pear tart. But, of course, you’d anticipated something like this and that was the reason you made extras. Against all odds, it seemed you’d managed to fall into a natural routine working here, you mused, automatically sweeping into pre-dinner cleanup mode.

If you happened to eat the tart trimmings leftover from you neatening the edges of the tart where Tony had taken indecorous chunks out of it, then no one was around to see it. You trimmed again to make sure it was extra neat. Pear burst sweet and spiced on your tongue. Mmm, say what they will about your job, at least no one could say you were bad at it. 

It was nearing dinnertime when you reached the last stretch of dishes. The team members who happened to be home at mealtime (which seemed to be more and more of them these days) trickled in one by one and chatted around the living area waiting for the flatbreads to finish. 

When you turned to reach for the final item, your slim baton-style rolling pin, you found that Wanda already had it in hand. For some reason, she wrapped it in a grocery bag and passed it into your soapy hands. (Where did she even find a grocery bag in here? You exclusively used reusable bags and you felt pretty strongly that Tony Stark was the exception to the truth universally acknowledged that any human in possession of a kitchen, must be in possession of an ungodly stash of saved grocery bags hoarded away in said kitchen.)

“I’m telling you this as your friend because my brother is awful: Take your rolling pin home to wash and dry. Do not do it here and do _not_ ask me why.” Wanda gave you a look that was half warning and half apologetic. In fact, she looked haunted. 

And if something was horrifying enough to haunt the Scarlet Witch, you didn’t want to know about it. “... Okay.”

She nodded at you, apparently satisfied and went back to her conversation with Vision.

As she put distance between the two of you, your shoulders relaxed a hair. You’d found it stressful to be around Wanda since that dream. It was bad enough that _you_ had to acknowledge that Pietro had pestered a grudging, unwelcome attraction out of you. That he held any sort of power over you was humiliating. The thought of anyone else finding out? Was unbearable. There was a nagging paranoia that Wanda was going to hear it in your thoughts somehow. 

It was worse than paranoia, in fact. Dream invasion had been a part of your life for as long as you could remember, but you had never ever been on the other side of it. Frankly, the idea of it scared the shit out of you. You’d always known theoretically that you wouldn’t appreciate someone waltzing in on your subconscious—part of why you hated unintentionally doing it to others—but it had never been in danger of actually happening. Until now. Like a career taxidermist suddenly being the one on the slab, your particular familiarity with the table that was being turned only multiplied your fear. Perhaps it was unreasonable, but the concept filled you with a deep-rooted dread that you could not have anticipated. 

That dread didn’t fade as the days went on. You worried that if you slept in Wanda’s room, or if she helped you to sleep anywhere, you’d dream again and she’d _see._ You had not forgotten about the first time Wanda helped you sleep, when she saw your deep-seated insecurities about depending on others and blabbed about them the very next morning (with good intentions, but still). She hadn’t _tried_ to snoop that night, you were willing to bet. She simply could not influence someone’s mind into sleeping without taking a look at the mind in question. That would make sense. And you of all people knew exactly how embarrassing and revealing other people’s dreams could be when you snooped. So you avoided sleeping in the Tower, even if you needed it. It felt like you’d lost so much of yourself over the last few years; you refused to lose your dignity, too. 

Besides, your recent bout of luck with naps seemed promising. It was time to be firm about not relying on Wanda’s help. Never mind that you were currently going on four days without sleep, the unassisted naps were a good sign. Dr. Comer, your latest sleep disorder specialist, would certainly be excited when you reported back about them at your 8 AM appointment. 

You opened the door to his clinic with confidence, despite your fatigue and the early hour. Dr. Comer would see your progress and together you’d be one step closer to figuring out a recovery plan.

*

An audiobook played at a low volume over the kitchen speakers. That was usually enough of a gentle hint to communicate ‘The Private Chef Does Not Want to Have Conversations at This Time.’ It had always worked with your previous clients. Polite society would read it that way. Pietro, on the other hand… 

“Zlippy, everything good in here?”

“Fine, Pietro,” you said in a clipped but polite tone. Hair kept falling into your face out of the same knot you’d put it in before your doctor’s appointment, but you didn’t fix it. You kept your bloodshot eyes on the balsamic reduction you were doing your best not to burn. The sooner you got everything ready here, the sooner you could be on your way home to put everything together for the night you had planned with your mom. It would be rude to flat-out tell Pietro to get what he needed from the kitchen and get out—it was his kitchen, too—but you really didn’t want to chat.

“And you are feeling well?”

“Mmhm. Thanks,” you told him.

“Bea,” his tone had taken a gentle turn for the serious. “Look at me.”

Based on your experience with Pietro thus far, it would be quicker to just comply. With a huff and an irritated flick of your wrist to turn the burner off, you dropped everything you were working on for Pietro—per usual—and took a moment to indulge him. Your expression softened a bit in spite of yourself at the sight of him; you were well past admitting to yourself that you were fond of him. The crush wasn’t dissipating on its own. How could it when faced with the resolute crease that cut between his brows, or the expressive downward quirk at the corners of his mouth when he was concerned? 

“You look tired.”

“Everything is fine, Pietro,” you dissembled. 

“Bea, this book on tape,” he waved an arm to gesture at the speakers, still carrying on softly. “It is playing on shuffle! For hours, now!”

Fuck. Oops.

“I know,” you lied defensively. Up until today, you’d done an admirable job of hiding your sleep deprivation from the team after That Dream made you terrified of Wanda peeking into your mind as she helped you fall and stay asleep. It wasn’t hard. All the obfuscation required was some under eye concealer, a perky disposition, and, when you’d had to give in and take one of those wretched sleeping pills, timing it so that your sleeping pill hangover landed on your day off. Perhaps it was naive to think you could maintain the ruse for long.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I’m. Fine,” you bit out. You could handle this on your own. You could absolutely handle this on your own because, in light of your appointment with Dr. Comer this morning, there wasn’t an alternative.

“I cannot help if you do not talk to me!”

“You don’t need to help at all.”

“The bags under your eyes are the size of garbage bags!” he yelled.

As he passed by, Clint chipped in, “Kid, I don’t know who taught you flirting but I think you’re doin’ it wrong.”

With a rude gesture and some indistinct muttering about ‘trying to repay a life debt with unsolicited advice,’ Pietro brushed Clint off, undaunted and unamused. “This is not healthy, Beatrice.” 

_Bay-ah-tree-chay._ He said it exactly the way he had in your dreams. It transformed an old lady name into something fresh and enigmatic. No, now was not the time to go weak in the knees, dammit! He was being a jerk. Pietro was always telling you how to do your job, how to loosen up, and now how to take care of yourself, and he didn’t know shit. You were getting sick of his total lack of faith in your ability to live your own damn life. And now he tells you you look like a trashbag?

“I’m doing my best, Pietro!” you exploded. Well, by your standards it was an explosion. You weren’t someone who really yelled. It wasn’t loud so much as desperate. “I’m not sleep starving myself for the fuck of it, okay? I’m going from doctor to doctor—just chewed through another specialist this morning! And for all the time and money, do you think he gave me some magical solution I’m ignoring? No! He thinks I’m going to die of a heart attack before I hit 30! He might be the last specialist left on my list right now, but I’m going to keep looking and god as my witness I’m going to find a bigger list. What more am I supposed to be doing? What do you want from me?” You were alarmed to find, by the end of your speech, that you felt near tears.

He eyed you thoughtfully like he was really considering your rhetorical question. Like he was asking himself what he wanted from you and was having a hard time deciding on a single answer. 

Carefully, he said, “I want you to stay the night.”

You blinked before it clicked: stay the night so Wanda could knock you out. You sighed. “I can’t. It’s my dad’s birthday.”

Pietro startled badly and blurted, “But your father… he died in Staten Island, I thought.”

Every exhausted muscle in your body tensed at once.

“You thought?” You squinted at Pietro from across the kitchen island, absolutely certain you’d told him nothing about your dad. You didn’t bring up your dad with anyone. “Or you read?”

Pietro was suddenly unable to meet your eyes, confirming your suspicion. There was a chance one of the Avengers had filled him in, but it sounded so much more like Pietro to actively, intentionally pilfer your secrets. So much for trying not to overstep.

“You read my _file?_ That’s an invasion of privacy! That’s stealing!”

Flinching briefly, almost imperceptibly quick, Pietro regained his usual facade of devilmaycare aloofness. “I am thief. This is not news. It’s the first thing you knew about me.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I… was curious about your S.H.I.E.L.D. record after talking to Agent Burns,” he admitted, shifting from foot to foot. “You don’t make sense to me. I thought your background will help me to understand.”

“You can’t just speedrun getting to know people! Reading someone’s file is not like finding them on Facebook. Do you know how—” You scrubbed a hand over your face feeling exhausted and exposed. “Do you know how fucked up that is? How private I am? What am I saying, of course you know how private I am,” you scoffed to yourself. “That’s why you’d go looking in the first place. You just can’t help yourself!” As if he were entitled to your information, and therein your deepest shame, just because he’d wanted it. 

“You don’t make sense to me either, but I’m not snooping on your nightmares or asking Wanda for information you wouldn’t share,” you continued. At least, you were pretty sure that was true. Sure, it was luck more than virtue that you hadn’t stumbled onto Pietro’s dreams. And sure, you’d done some reading on the twins after you first met them, but only what was public record or common knowledge among the department. You sighed. However justified your mind felt your anger was, your body didn’t have the energy to sustain it. “I hope you were entertained.”

Pietro made a soft, unhappy sound. He stepped forward so gently that you felt sure he wasn’t moving on purpose. 

When he moved forward, you moved back, retreating to the other end of the counter and belatedly pausing the old audiobook playlist on your phone with lethargic fingers. The way the fight was leaving you felt like a physical change. You deflated, sinking into one of the seats at the island. Under the counter, you let your feet knock against the chair legs but at this point you couldn’t really feel your feet. 

The cat was already out of the bag (dead, in case Schrödinger was wondering), so in a hollow voice you clarified for Pietro, “He is dead. The file you read is accurate. He was John Joseph Reuben’s hostage in the Staten Island incident, how they lured me to take my powers. I complied with them, but he. Didn’t make it.”

Instead of apologizing, leaving, or asking you more invasive questions, to your surprise Pietro slowly pulled out the chair beside you and waited quietly, staring ahead at the backsplash.

“We still celebrate his birthday. My mom and I.”

His jaw clenched, and he gave a slight nod to show he understood.

“My mom blames my job. If I hadn’t been working with S.H.I.E.L.D., I wouldn’t have been a target and my dad wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with it all. Wouldn’t have been taken hostage by Reuben. That’s what she thinks. That’s why I haven’t told her I’m working here again. I wanna make her understand that it wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D., that it could have—maybe would have—happened anyways. But if you can’t blame S.H.I.E.L.D., then you’ve gotta blame me, and I don’t know if I can handle her blaming me. Even if I deserve it.”

Pietro opened his mouth, looking like he planned to contradict you, so you cut in, “How much did you read?”

His pointed pause was all the answer you needed. That meant, ‘all of it.’

You were bone tired, so you gave it to him straight. “I don’t like that you know all that stuff about me. I’m kind of a private person.”

“Kind of,” he agreed in a tone that accused you of understatement, but there wasn’t much humor in his voice. “I… perhaps I am too impulsive and selfish in my curiosity. I only thought to see basic work history. I did not expect to find—” he cut himself off. “I did not stop to think it would upset you.” 

The sanctity of privacy was a philosophical debate you held with yourself all the time. After all, you’d been violating countless people’s privacy through dream invasion over the years. But at least you had the good graces to know it was wrong. At least you had never done it on purpose. To see someone like Pietro traipse so carelessly over the ethical line you always agonized over toeing made his violation sting all the sharper. When your emotions settled later, the revelation likely wouldn’t make much of a difference. Either way, your dad was dead, the circumstances of his death were still horrifying, and Pietro was still unmanageable. But for the time being, those emotions were still running high.

“Can I ask something?” Pietro broke the chain of your troubled thoughts.

You glanced up at him, lingering on the bruisey pink color that clung to his eyelids, and sighed. “Yeah. May not answer.”

“It is your business, of course, but again I am curious. When would you tell, if I did not spy? How long would you wait to tell a friend this?”

“I don’t know. Until the right time, I guess. After I’d slept on it, considered any drawbacks. It’s like you said in the car, I’m not past it yet. I’m still figuring out how to live with what happened. Constant reminders make that really hard. People who know treat you different. Tony’s much more careful with me now than he was before; I almost wonder if he hired me out of guilt like Dad’s death was his fault for not getting there sooner. It’s just impossible to forget when people treat you—” A new thought struck you and your eyes went wide. “Is that why you got all weird and careful around me last week? Pity after reading my file? Oh god, it _is,_ you felt _bad_ for me—”

“No, Bea! _Calmează-Te!_ It had nothing to do with that.”

“Oh my god, you wanted to stop picking on the sick kid who got her dad killed. No wonder you were saying ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome,’” you were groaning to yourself, unwilling to believe Pietro’s excuses when your version of events suddenly made so much sense. 

With a frustrated noise, he pulled your hand from where it had risen to cover your face. 

“If you listen, I’m saying it was not that! If I tell you, will you calm down? I was…” Pietro bit his cheek looking equal parts aggravated and embarrassed. “Agent Burns was here and you were so easy around him. Not like around me. None of the yelling, the throwing. It made me wonder… Romanoff has been _hinting,”_ he emphasized the euphemism with dry sarcasm, “that I am a pain, but I did not question myself until then. Of course, since then you have reminded me that I am wonderful company: provoking, exciting and handsome,” (you rolled your eyes), “and so we are normal, but that was the reason. I saw the file days later.”

If his timeline was accurate, then he really hadn’t treated you differently. That, at least, was something. He released your wrist, but a heated tingle lingered on the skin there.

“If you remember, I have been through something… not the same. But something that prevented me from feeling pity when I read your file. The Maximoff twins are orphans. I read and understand, ‘Oh, we have cuts in similar places.’ Though I would not have seen it. We treat them in different ways.” 

His direct gaze was eye-wateringly hard to hold, but you persevered, heart thudding against your upper ribs. From where you were sitting, it felt like he could see right through you. And you weren’t used to being seen at all, let alone seen _through._ It made you want to run. It made you want to scoot closer.

Pietro ran a hand through his messy hair and exhaled through his nose. “I am not expressing myself so good. What I mean is, what I read? This could not make me pity you. Certainly it could not make me blame you. It does help to explain. But, as you say, it was not mine to read. You are right. I was wrong to take it. Can you forgive me?”

Earnestness from him was rare and you’d had no chance to develop an immunity to it. As if his eyes weren’t distracting enough under normal circumstances. Awkward under the intensity of his scrutiny, you joked weakly, “Let me sleep on it.”

When his eyes bugged out of his head, you gathered this was yet another English phrase that was as of yet unknown to him. From the damning up-and-down look his surprised eyes brushed over you, he’d clearly interpreted the ‘it’ in your sentence to mean _him._

Squinting embarrassed eyes shut, you had to acknowledge it was your fault for continually using these phrases. Pietro’s English was extremely good, but he wasn’t going to pick up on everything at once. “Idiom. It means give me time to think about it. I didn’t mean it anyways. I… forgive you. You didn’t mean any harm. And it’s absurd for me of all people to judge you for stealing sensitive information—we’ve both done that, on a professional level, even. It just _really_ caught me off guard.”

“So you… don’t need time,” he ventured, sounding very much like he didn’t believe you.

“No, as long as you promise to _try_ to pause and think next time, we’re good. I was mostly making a bad joke, because, y’know, sleep. Insomnia.” 

He processed the information, then paused. “Don’t get mad when I ask,” Pietro prefaced with his hands up as if he were scared you were going to hit him, as if you even could, “but is there really no way to be helpful? With the insomnia?”

“Not unless you know a good sleep disorder specialist. One that doesn’t go running at the word ‘Enhanced.’” Technically, you weren’t Enhanced, but it was a good shorthand. Since your case could be described as ‘an excruciating clusterfuck of outlying data,’ you were basically useless for clinical study, and that closed a lot of doors. 

Pietro snorted softly with you. He turned the conversation to what you were cooking and how you were going to allow him to help so you could leave early. But all through bullying you into submission and speedily (sloppily) chopping vegetables, he kept a thoughtful expression on his face, chewing on an idea he kept to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've washed a French rolling pin before, you know what I'm talking about. Starting to earn the rating at last! Thank you for the comments!! Helps to know I’m not screaming into the void (or at least that the void is screaming back).
> 
> Translations:  
>  _Calmează-Te!_ \- Don’t worry! / Calm down!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, long time new president! Sorry this chapter took so long, thanks for waiting! Sort of an in-between chapter for me to slog through but we’re going places. Still have no idea what this fic is so if you find out please let me know.

_Pistachio challah._

“Ms. Dorsey?” FRIDAY interrupted politely.

“Mm?”

“Your presence is requested in the fortieth floor conference room.”

“Me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, okay, then.” You were so preoccupied with properly storing your challah dough for its second rise and getting your apron off that it wasn’t until you were in the elevator on your way down that you realized you’d neglected to ask who you were meeting with or why. 

Dusting the flour (fruitlessly) from your jeans, you steadied yourself and strode all the way to the end of the hallway.

In the fortieth floor conference room, you found a very unexpected trio: Nick Fury, an aide of his (you didn’t recognize her but she looked like a Russian prison guard who worked part-time at Ann Taylor Loft—she also looked like she could probably snap that fountain pen in her hand in half without blinking), and Sam Wilson.

As you exchanged greetings, your mind flew through the possibilities. What in the world did Fury want with you? And what was Sam doing here? This wasn’t a mission briefing, was it? As much as you’d always wanted to tell someone offering you one last job, ‘I’ve retired,’ with a grizzled look on your face, you didn’t understand why they would even ask. You were in no shape for field work. With trepidation, you took your seat across from the table from them.

“I should congratulate you on your work here, Dorsey,” Fury said with a straight face, as if your ‘work’ was still gathering intelligence and subduing deadly targets in covert ops.

“On my cooking, sir?”

Impassive as ever, Fury didn’t bat an eye. “Credit where credit is due. Attendance at team meals is at an all-time high, team communication has been noticeably better, no big tantrums or expensive pissing matches. The team is performing visibly better, cleaner, as a unit in the field, and according to Stark’s AI, the common denominator is your addition. We’ve got agents who don’t even live in this building showing up for meals when they can.”

Now that he mentioned it, you had been seeing a lot of Rhodey lately… 

Fury rolled an eye and gestured to the man on his left. “For god’s sake, Wilson wasn’t even supposed to attend this meeting! He just showed up because he thought you might bring snacks.”

There was a lengthy, expectant pause. 

“Well?” Sam burst at last. “Did you?”

You wanted to say no because you weren’t a walking vending machine and it felt like puppy training; you didn’t want everyone to start expecting this stuff. You _wanted_ to say no, but in truth you had leftover candied pistachios in your bag and no hard plan for how to use them up yet. So you just sighed, fished around your bag, and slid the tupperware of nuts across the board room table.

As Sam tore into the container, you patiently waited for Fury to get past these pleasantries (uncharacteristic for him) and get down to whatever serious business he had to discuss. It didn’t sound like they were terminating you. Was this about your security clearance? Were they going to ask you to start dosing Tony’s coffee? Whatever it was, if Fury was here personally, national security was clearly at stake. You swallowed dry.

“Stay forever,” Sam said with his mouth full of pistachios. “Stark and Speedy are playing nice. Barton’s easier to get a hold of. Hell, even Thor’s hair looks shinier!”

“Oh, I put collagen in the fudgesicles,” you said. 

They blinked at you. 

“It’s good for your hair and joints,” you supplied. 

Despite your clear cut explanation, their inexplicable awe persisted. Even Fury’s terrifying aide had unclenched her square jaw. It was hanging open a little. “And you were an _agent_ here before?” she double-checked with you involuntarily, her expression soaked in incredulity. Fury shot her a sharp look and she immediately backtracked. “Sorry,” she told him quickly and resumed her stony posture.

Fury steepled his fingers over a stack of documents in front of him like he had to compensate for his associates’ lapse in conduct by being professional and dramatic enough for all three of them. He leaned forward with heavy eye contact. “When can you move in?”

“Pardon?” you choked on air.

“We want to relocate you to Avengers Tower. Adjust your contract so you’re officially employed by S.H.I.E.L.D., not Stark. You’d live here full-time, but with only a minimal increase in your typical work hours and the addition of breakfasts, maybe four plus times a week. That can be negotiated later.”

Nick Fury was here to discuss pancakes with you? Like, it was weird that they wanted you to move in, yes. But it was fifty times weirder that Fury himself was personally making the offer. “Sir?” was all you could manage to say.

“Was I unclear?”

“You’re really here to renegotiate the cook’s contract?”

He pulled a face as though he found it every bit as absurd as you did. Then the commiserating look passed and he was back to business. “The fact is that your presence has had a measurable impact on team synergy and efficiency. This month may prove to be an outlier, but it’s to the point where these improvements have relieved stress on the Defense budget—I know this sounds like bullshit, trust me, I thought so, too, but I really don’t want to have to sit through the AI explaining it all over again.”

Okay, yeah, approximately none of this made sense. Discreetly, you pinched your thigh just to be sure you were awake. You were not prepared to live in Avengers Tower again—not even to be an active agent, but to make _breakfast._ Of all the batshit proposals for Fury to make. “Do you really need live-in help? Isn’t that what Tony’s bots are for?”

His voice took on a slow, patiently impatient tone like you were being obtuse. “We do not need live-in help. We feel confident that bringing you on full-time could have sizeable benefits for the Avengers program.” He eyed you with his signature Nick-Fury-negotiating-brow-lift. “Benefits for both sides.”

He leaned back in his chair and continued, “Think about it, Dorsey. It’d be nice to move out of your mother’s place.”

You bit your cheek. Back when you first left Avengers Tower, your mom had been having trouble adjusting after your dad’s death, and at the time you suddenly didn’t need to be living with the Avengers anymore, so you went with your conscience and moved in with her. But now that she was better adapted, it was time to move on. The salary Tony was paying you had you inching closer to your financial goals to make it happen, but Fury’s offer would have you out of the house _immediately_. And with your disordered sleeping and the litany of strange sleep aids you cycled in and out of trying, it seemed prudent to have someone living with you, lest you drown in the bathtub or something equally awkward for a paramedic to find. 

“Not to mention…” Fury let his pause do a slow lap around the room. He was about to play his ace. You wore the same look on your face at gingerbread house competitions. “A good night’s sleep on a regular basis.”

You raised an eyebrow at him.

“The Maximoff girl is pretty talented, isn’t she?” Fury mused conversationally.

God _damn_ it. How did he even know about that?

“I don’t want to become reliant on a sleep aid, sir,” you told him sincerely. “ _Any_ sleep aid. And I don’t think Wanda would appreciate being treated as a… as an amenity in a contract negotiation.”

Fury rolled an eye. “Your teammate _Wanda_ ,” he spat, “is the one who came to us about it.”

Before you could correct his use of the word ‘teammate,’ Fury pushed forward to finish playing his ace. “And in addition to ‘Scarlet Witch,’ we have a contract with a specialist you might be interested in meeting. Dr. Helen Cho has an uncommon amount of experience with rehabilitation when it comes to Enhanced and what we’ll call… outlier cases.”

Outlier cases like you.

“She’ll be here in about a month to check in on some of her patients and collect data on the experimental treatments she’s conducted. With you on a S.H.I.E.L.D. health plan, it wouldn’t be difficult to pencil you in for a physical. See if she has insights.”

You gaped. That was one hell of an ace. It was like he somehow knew you’d run out of specialists. He probably did know. He had you.

Fury snapped his gloved fingers and accepted a stack of papers from the aide. You didn’t know it was even possible to snap with gloves on. 

“I’m gonna cut the shit because I’ve got three domestic terrorism cases to oversee and I can’t talk about scones all day. You were terminated as an agent because of your health problems. Medical team hoped that with some time off your skills would bounce back, so S.H.I.E.L.D. followed their recommendation. Frankly, they were tempted to keep you on as a desk agent, whether or not your powers came back. There was a reason Coulson pushed for you to move in with the Avengers, for all that I could barely remember who you were. You’re a fit for the department, Dorsey.”

This was news to you, that there had been talk of keeping you—you figured your powers were the sole factor deciding your job security. Not that you’d been waiting or planning to return to your old job anyways. The way things ended plus your family’s misgivings about the job made you decide that that chapter of your life had closed. 

“We were monitoring the situation until you recovered from the time off. But you didn’t.” You winced. He said it so matter-of-fact. Like he wasn’t chopping the hulking mass of all your daily agonies down into one bite-sized sentence. You’d been a wreck, mentally and physically, in the wake of your father’s death, and after the dust had settled, your insomnia left you in no shape for a high pressure job, even one at a desk.

“We can get along without you, Dorsey. You aren’t Captain America. But you’re uncommonly suited to working with this team. Believe it or not, it makes a difference. You can make even more of a difference.” He dropped the contract papers on the table with an impressive ‘thunk’ and slid them across the table. “I’d say some dramatic shit about not asking again, but we probably will. Only difference is you’ll spend longer suffering before accepting the offer.”

You hated to say it, but Fury was actually making some decent points about meeting your potential. 

“What about my threat to sensitive intelligence?” The brass were aware of your involuntary dream sharing. When you were sleeping in buildings and planes and hotels full of top-clearance agents and officers, you could learn a lot of things you were never ever meant to know. (Not to mention things you never _wanted_ to know, _Tony.)_

“The dream thing?” Fury looked bored.

“Yes, sir.”

His sigh was gusty and put-upon. “Well, these days with the Maximoff girl running around—or I guess her brother is the one running—the point is moot. You won’t jeopardize security any more than she already does just by existing. Goes without saying we’d have your clearance reinstated.” Fury cracked his knuckles like the deal was done.

And, well. It kind of was. There were still a lot of good reasons not to take the offer—how would you tell Nana? How would you tell Mom? How would you deal with Pietro on a daily basis? How would you sleep in a building where Wanda could see your fantasies? But you felt like you were fulfilling a bigger purpose here, especially if what Fury was saying about improved team communication was actually true. It was a patently silly sentiment when you were just making soup for superheroes, but that didn’t change how you felt. And it was a feeling you missed. 

When you asked for a pen, the quiet atmosphere of the room lifted like fog from a city, revealing the bustling activity underneath. Fury’s aide gathered up his belongings and her own in one of those terrifying briefcases—the kind that said, “I’m either full of syringes, half a million dollars in cash, nuclear codes, or all three”—and rose to leave. 

You signed the flagged pages quickly, confirming everything from NDA renewals concerning state secrets to up-to-date contact information. You didn’t want to change your mind and chicken out; this felt right. At the door to the conference room, you gave Fury a firm, concise handshake that made the corner of his mouth turn up. Okay, you knew you were tiny and basically a glorified baker, but c’mon, you’d still been an agent not worth fucking with. You felt you’d earned at least a little respect.

“Thank you, sir.” You just hoped you wouldn’t regret this.

“Good to have you back, Dorsey.”

And off they went in a funerary procession of serious black coats.

In their wake, Sam sidled up to you crunching on the last of the pistachios. “So what’s ‘the dream thing?’” 

“Yeah um,” you winced. “It’s kinda like the drawback to the sleep powers, only now I don’t even have those other powers. Basically I tend to randomly project into nearby people’s dreams when I’m sleeping.”

You’d learned very young that sleep inducement made you strange, but that it was something you could learn to control with time. It was a way you could be _useful._ The dreamstealing on the other hand was unpredictable and unhelpful. Not to mention traumatizing. Neighbors’ nightmares were no place for a child. It took a while to figure out that what you were seeing wasn’t from your own head, but as soon as you understood, you also understood that other people’s minds were often volatile, terrifying places that you’d never visit if you had the power to stop. It was difficult to even talk to your parents about how to handle it because they were understandably uneasy with the knowledge that you could spy on them too.

One particular night when you were around seven years old, you’d stumbled into the nightmare (and hopefully not the memory) of the Vietnam vet who lived down the street. In your twenties you could still remember bits and pieces of the horrifying images. As a trembling child, you hadn’t been able to find your way out of the hallucination so you’d tried to shape the dream, to make it calmer, softer. To quiet both the alternating screaming and the suffocating silence that took turns torturing every wretched soul hiding in the jungle. You’d tried to shush the pain the way your mother lovingly shushed yours. It hadn’t worked. Maybe you weren’t strong enough or maybe it had been a fool’s errand to begin with. Whatever you had tried, it was a whisper in a tornado. The scene stayed horrible. The only change was that you’d given away your location. They knew where you were. They _all _knew. They found you.__

__You didn’t like to think about that night. You didn’t try changing other people's dreams after that._ _

__“Sounds kind of cool. Nosy, but cool.”_ _

__“It’s not,” you told him frankly. “I have no control over it. And you hardly ever learn anything useful, so it’s nosy without any upside. Most of the time I just have to suffer through whatever it is, weird, invasive, scary, boring. Back in the day, if it was a nightmare or something really bizarre, I’d just try and wake myself up, but sleep is so rare for me these days that most times I’ll just strap in for the nightmare to get the rest. It’s… Sorry, I’m just whining now.”_ _

__“Come on, Dorsey, you can’t tell me you’ve never found anything interesting.”_ _

__“I live with my _mom_ , Sam,” you gave him a pointed look. “Have you ever seen the raw inner workings of your mom’s mind? Trust me, cons outweigh the pros.”_ _

__He grimaced a little ‘yikes’ face in sympathy before conceding, “Well, I guess just be glad you’re moving out.”_ _

__“Amen,” you sighed. An alarm on your phone chirped to announce the end of your challah's long second proof and you smiled. Finally time._ _

__

__*_ _

____

_Macadamia nut ~~-poisoned~~ -dusted churros with dipping chocolate._

Just because it was the most practical choice didn’t make it any easier to deal with the ramifications of accepting Fury’s offer. For all your years of experience with S.H.I.E.L.D., you were being a remarkable coward about the whole thing. Two days had passed since you signed on the dotted line and you still had yet to even mention the promotion to your mother. Not the moving out part or the months-long deception part or the re-employed by the US government part.

Your eyes lost focus on the fancy food processor blending a salad dressing. What would she say? Was she going to cry? Call you out for lying to her by omission? How _much_ was she going to cry? The longer you agonized over it, the more you were going to psych yourself out. It wasn’t helpful, but you couldn’t stop. The green paste in the processor spiraled in the center and you spiraled with it, hypnotized.

“I think it’s ready,” came Wanda’s voice from behind you. 

“Oh!” you said over your shoulder, belatedly clicking the off switch. “You’re back.” Wanda and her brother had been out all day.

“Yes. There is still so much of the city we have not seen. But there’s only so much we can do in one day.”

A scoff sounded near Wanda, and Pietro piped up, “Only so much _you_ can do in one day.” He snapped you a wink quick enough to make you question whether you’d imagined it. The twins had been notably unsurprised when you told them about your promotion, supporting Fury’s claim that Wanda herself had been pushing for it. You still weren’t sure what to think about sharing a living space with them, but you reasoned that you’d done worse to get access to quality specialists like Dr. Cho.

You looked the pair over, taking in the garish blue-and-grey t-shirt Pietro was sporting. It had his name misspelled on it in spraypaint. You felt your eyes crinkle into a grin. “Don’t tell me you went to Coney Island.”

The mental image of Wanda stone-faced on a rollercoaster was too good. 

“Piet likes rides,” Wanda explained. 

“Don’t you mean Pedro,” you asked, gesturing at the name sprawled across Pietro’s chest in loopy airbrushed flourishes.

“It was a miscommunication,” Pietro muttered. Adorable. 

“So, how was it?” you prompted.

He started to respond but your attention was stolen by your phone lighting up on the counter to display an O Magazine recipe your mother was sending you asking if you could make it fat free. She must have been having a slow day at work. You wondered if she’d get home early. Maybe today was the day to confront her. Every day that passed brought you closer to your move-in date. You had less than a week. You needed to tell her. But when? As always, you were holding out for the Right Time and it was eluding you. And leaving when aside, _how?_ How do you tell your mother you’ve been lying to her for months for a reason that was only about to escalate? Do you start with, ‘How was your day?’ Ah jeez, she was definitely, definitely going to cry.

“—have you?” Wanda was asking.

“Huh?” Your eyes traced over the ingredients list without reading, wondering if you’d have the balls to go through with it tonight. “Sorry, have I what?”

“Have you eaten there recently?” Wanda repeated while her brother stole a surreptitious glance at your phone screen.

“Eaten?” You were distracted still. Your head bobbed up belatedly to give Wanda an apologetic look. “Eaten what?”

“At the amusement park.”

Pietro chipped in brightly, “Wanda took me to a place with this thing called churros. Do you know them? They are like tulumba but hot and with cinnamon. They are incredible!” 

“Yeah, churros are great,” you agreed with an absent smile. You hadn’t been to Coney Island since you were like eleven. Your mom went on the Brooklyn Flyer with you even though she was scared of heights. Just because she knew it was what you wanted. How many months had you been lying to her for, now? Three? More? 

“You look sad,” Pietro observed, making you wince until he continued, “and you should.”

“What?”

He gave you a what-can-you-do shrug. “It is sad, but I don’t think anyone will make churros better than that. It is healthy to confront our limits,” he consoled you smugly.

You felt your brows crease, train of thought thoroughly derailed. Ever make churros better than that? He was talking about the kind filled with dulce de leche from an industrial vat, right? Granted, it was surely delicious, fresh from the fryer like that. You were never one to underestimate the value of streetfood. But to say that no one could do better? After his first time ever eating them? Absurd. 

“I don’t know about that,” you frowned at him.

“You’re saying I am wrong?”

“I’m saying I have no reason to say you’re right.”

Something in Pietro’s face said that you were playing into his hands beautifully. “If you say that I am wrong, you must be willing to prove it,” he reasoned with an expectant look. There it was, the punchline.

“I’m sorry, is this an attempt to manipulate me?” 

“Pietro!” Wanda scolded. “Bea is not a short-order cook! To the gym, now—let her do her work and we will do ours. She is not here to cater to your whims!”

Well. You were and you weren’t. Catering to him, along with the rest of the team, was literally your job description.

“Fine,” Pietro conceded. Wanda, satisfied by this, went on ahead to gym. Before leaving, Pietro added, “Probably for the best. These days your cakes have been soggy inside.” He gave you a parting glance, faux-casual with a catty gleam in his blue eyes.

 _“Ex-cuse me?”_ you gawked, but he was already slinking off to train with Wanda.

He knew he was baiting you, _you_ knew he was baiting you, but by god it was working. Because you could definitely mix up a mean batch of churros. Better than a bunch hot from a street cart fryer? Maybe not, but still damn good and probably pretty different, not filled with dulce de leche but served Spanish style unfilled and accompanied by a warm chocolate dipping sauce. And they would be cooked to perfection, just like your cakes which were _not_ soggy inside, damn him.

You ground your teeth. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Ms. Dorsey?”

“Pull up my choux pastry recipe, please. And that food allergy chart you sent me when I first started this job.”

You were gonna make the best damn churros the world had ever known and Pietro wasn’t getting his grubby paws on a single damn one of them. Scrolling through the recipe, mind whirring a mile a minute, all thoughts of your mother’s tearful face slipped away.

A deep inhale sounded from the doorway. “Ah, so predictive. Predicting? Are you enjoying yourself?” Pietro was earlier to return from training than you’d expected.

Like a mad scientist in your chocolate-spattered apron and cinnamon-dusted hair evidencing your impassioned experimentation, you glowed with pride. You couldn’t blame him for sniffing the air; it smelled like a donut factory in the kitchen. The first batch of churros were turning out beautifully. Tucking your evil grin away in secret, you plastered on an oblivious face for Pietro. “Predictable? Me?”

Pietro looked so pleased with himself as he watched your poorly hidden smile sneak back out. Not for long, though. Anticipation bubbled up in you pleasantly as you played dumb. You’d been like a woman possessed these past hours, single-minded on your goal. Achieving just the right cinnamon-sugar balance, working your way through three different dipping chocolate recipes to get the ideal ratio of indulgence to drippiness. It was an art and you were still knee-deep in the creative high. _God_ you loved this stuff.

Pietro nodded slowly as if he’d just delivered you a diagnosis. “Terribly. But this is a beautiful thing because I am starving from exercise.”

“Aw shucks, I guess there’s no winning with you,” you heaved a heavy sigh, hamming it up. “I might as well let you have them. My super special macadamia nut churros are yours for the taking.”

That drew him up short. “Macadamia?” he repeated. “Like, _nuci de macadamia?_ This?” His fingers blurred on the overtaxed display of his phone and then he turned it to face you, showing images of macadamia nuts for clarification.

“Mmhmm,” you hummed cheerily. “They’re delicious, right?” Lies. You’d only added the nuts to the dusting sugar to be mean. They were so finely ground and in such a small quantity, they hardly affected the churros’ flavor at all.

A jumble of distraught Sokovian words left his mouth in quick succession. You thought you caught the word _‘alergie,’ _but not much else.__

__You faked a gasp, “Oh no! Can you not have macadamia nuts? That’s so unfortunate!”_ _

__The crestfallen tilt of his dark eyebrows was giving you life. In that moment, you felt you understood how supervillains were born. What a feeling. You must not have been hiding your glee very well; his eyebrows edged towards suspicious._ _

__“You did this on purpose.” His assessing glance was a palpable thing, making you shiver as it brushed over you head to toe and back again. Pietro was sizing you up anew, as an opponent. You waited for the Scooby Doo villain speech, for the ‘you win this round, you and your meddling AI.’ It didn’t come. His expression hardened, refusing to concede defeat._ _

__With the predatory slowness of a jungle cat, Pietro reached for a churro without breaking eye contact._ _

__You opened your mouth to tell him you hadn’t been bluffing, that there really were ground up macadamia nuts in there, but it was already too late. “Pietro, no!”_ _

__Trying to smack it from his hand was fruitless, he was too fast. “They’re really in there!” you told him emphatically, gesturing at the bag of nuts on the counter behind you. “You’re gonna have a reaction!”_ _

__He was going to asphyxiate and it was going to be horrible. This wasn’t the plan. In your vision, Pietro didn’t come into the kitchen until after you texted Wanda and Thor to come try the churros. He was supposed to be forced to watch them in throes of ecstasy over the churros; Wanda would confirm that yours were better and Thor would finish off all the extras just to be safe. Wanda and Thor were supposed to eat all the churros and Pietro was supposed to eat nothing but his words. Leave it to you to underestimate how fast Quicksilver would be at something._ _

__But rather than appearing worried, he only appeared blissed out. He licked the cinnamon sugar from his fingertips, verging on worshipful._ _

__“What happens when you have macadamia nuts?!” you fretted, unassuaged by his calm demeanor._ _

__“Magic,” Pietro said in a rapturous voice, though his throat and face were beginning to visibly swell. Cinnamon sugar sprinkled down from his stubble as his mouth widened into a pastry-filled grin. As an afterthought, he rasped, “And inflammation.”_ _

__“What the hell, Pietro?! Do you have a death wish?”_ _

__“Healing fac-tor,” he garbled through his full mouth. Speaking became more difficult for him then, but he managed to wheeze, “Worth it.” Every exhale was like a whistle now through his constricted airways, but if Pietro was concerned, he didn’t show it._ _

__“Go see Bruce,” you ordered, pointing a firm finger down the hallway._ _

__He complied and sauntered out of the kitchen, but not before pilfering _another_ churro and dipping it in chocolate on his way out._ _

__Mouth still agape in disbelief, you watched Pietro’s fitted joggers disappear down the hall with deliberate, self-satisfied slowness even as he suffocated. Though it pained you to admit it… he had won this round._ _

__Fuck._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just like to picture the Maximoff twins doing hokey tourist stuff. Wanda taking a picture with a Times Square Elmo or a knockoff Iron Man... art. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about the story so far! The next chapter will be meatier and hooopefully take less time to edit. We’ve got so much more cliche stuff ahead. How many different ways can I possibly shoehorn relationship development into a dessert scene?? I intend to fuck around and find out. See you there!
> 
> Translations:  
> tulumba - a deep fried Ottoman pastry  
>  _nuci de macadamia_ \- macadamia nuts  
>  _alergie_ \- allergy


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 2021: time to post cringe. Sorry for the wait— here's an extra long chapter to make it up to you! Also for anybody bored or interested, here's a [playlist for the fic.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5WdVHGwJ2gCMzKepv6xAz1?si=bczqBzNJSFO0jbBQO2yo2Q)

The day of your move-in, the elevator doors opened to a penthouse that seems all but deserted. You stepped off with the first of your boxes to find hallways so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. According to FRIDAY, the usual suspects were all stuck in a lengthy briefing being held on one of the lower floors. Ah well, at least you weren’t among those being forced to sit quietly for hours on end watching Tony bait Steve whenever the presenters weren’t looking, like some high school study hall filled with problem children. Being insignificant had its perks. 

Help would have been nice, but you didn’t actually have that much stuff. Most of your bigger pieces of cooking equipment were already accounted for in the Tower and god knew the furnishings Tony’s already had were way nicer than anything of yours. Besides those things, it was really just a matter of clothes and books. And a couple plants. A few plants. A handful. A couple boxes full… a few boxes full. 

With the tall moving box obscuring your view, you ambled blindly in the direction of the hall to your new room.

“Oof,” you exhaled as the box smushed into your nose. Had you misremembered where the walls were? 

Upon lowering your box and peering over the top, you found Pietro parked in the hallway with his arms crossed leveling an amused look down at you.

“Pietro! Is the meeting over already?” 

“Nothing so fortunate. I am released on a ‘bathroom break.’” 

“How long have you been on a ‘bathroom break?’” you asked, forced to add dubious air quotes to the phrase verbally while your hands were tied up. 

He didn’t quite answer your question, saying only, “If I’m want to listen to pointless lectures with no relevance to me, I would be in university.”

“They’re gonna notice when someone with super speed takes longer than two minutes,” you warned him.

“I will say I am sick from your chicken last night. Easy peasy,” he smirked meanly. 

You matched his expression pleasantly. “Oh FRIDAY?”

Pietro’s grin fell somewhat.

“Yes, Ms. Dorsey?”

“Could you let the briefing room know that Mr. Maximoff—”

Pietro cut you off with a hand fitted over your mouth before your threat could even be described. He had become way too comfortable getting in your space like this; you were afraid there would never be any getting used to it. He smelled good… you snapped yourself out of your daze vigorously and met his stare.

Silently, you raised your brows at him, expectant. 

“I will buy your silence, _fără inimă.”_

“How?” Your question was muffled by his fingers. His callouses rasped slightly against your lips when you spoke, you flushed to notice.

It was difficult to tell if he’d understood you at first. He only blinked down at his own hand and hastily removed it, flexing it after as if he’d been tickled. Then he turned his discerning gaze to your surroundings in search of an offer. After a moment, his expression smoothed into something more sure-footed. “I will help with your boxes of course. How can a man of justice sit idly in meetings when a citizen is needing help?”

“Ms. Dorsey?” FRIDAY said quietly. Pietro’s eyes pled his case. 

“Nevermind, FRIDAY. We’re all good.” You turned back to Pietro. “Don’t worry, I don’t have much. The boxes are all in the trunk of one of the black SUVs down in parking. The trunk should still be open. Here, I’ll show—” 

He was already gone. Why was that even a surprise? The doofus hadn’t even waited to hear which room to drop your things in. 

In the meantime, you hefted your first box up and started back down the hallway. It was hard to ignore the sinking feeling you got that it was going to be impossible to stay clear of the Maximoffs’ shenanigans now that you were living here. All of your issues with getting distracted by and distressingly fond of Pietro were only going to get worse from here. Passing the gym, you were hit by the stray thought that he might get bored of bothering you once you were available full time, thus solving your problem. But that thought, too, made you sad. You liked that he found you entertaining.

“Get it together,” you muttered to yourself. You weren’t here for that. You were here to do honest work for people whose own work you respected, to pick up a similarly respectable paycheck, to take advantage of some top of the line medical care, and then to move on to the next phase of your life. Getting distracted with idle fantasies would help no one, least of all you. 

“Bea?”

You jumped at the sound of his low voice, closer to you than he had any right to be, appearing out of thin air like that. “Huhwhat?” Did he have to stand so close and look… like that? You struggled to meet his eyes. He towered over you, silvery hair blown back off his face from his run.

“You seem distracted.” Pietro was all energy, rocking on the balls of his feet. Or you thought he was; the movement was a little too fast for you to be certain. You hoped there weren’t any valuables in the sizeable moving box he jostled in his arms.

“And you seem chipper,” you squinted, resituating the heavy box in your arms.

“The meeting has been hours, and now I am free. Also, you are moving in,” he said as if there were no need to expand on how exactly that explained his excellent mood.

“And what, you’re excited you get to annoy me 24/7?”

“You flatter my stamina, Bea,” Pietro purred, fluttering his eyelashes. Then he pivoted subjects. “But this stamina is enough to take the boxes off your hands. Which room will I put them in? Or will you just sleep in the kitchen?” His tone was cheeky. You fought the urge to pout; that was just _one time._ Or actually, maybe two. Shit.

You did turn to set your box down as he’d suggested. It was full of books and your arms were starting to tire. “I don’t know if I should tell you. Maybe I don’t feel comfortable with you knowing where I sleep,” you said, managing to give him a playful look over your shoulder.

“Oh, I am the dangerous one, ah?” he scoffed. “You are the one who poisons my food on purpose!”

“Yeah, and yet Fury still promoted me,” you smirked without a trace of remorse. “I think they’re hoping I’ll finish the job.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

You willed yourself to not visibly react to his flirting, even though an uncontrollable part of you was flustered and pleased by it. By now, you knew enough to confidently say it meant nothing. That was just Pietro. Besides, it was something you’d best get used to as you were moving in.

He looked at you expectantly. A quiet moment stretched. He seemed to be in no hurry. Why was he staring at you?

“... What?” you finally asked, unnerved.

“You have not told me which room.”

Ah. “Is that clothes or baking stuff?” From your height, you couldn’t tell what he was holding. Not much point in labelling the boxes when there were so few of them. Baking stuff could be left here so you could take it to the kitchen, clothes would need to be walked to the bedroom.

“Plants,” he replied. 

A frown crinkled your brow. “If that’s a plant box, where are all the leaves?” All the big boxes of plants you packed this morning had leaves and stalks and vines spilling over the top.

Pietro blinked and finally broke eye contact with you to glance downward. For an instant you saw his mouth flatten in dismay, nostrils flaring in some weird expression of surprise. 

A theory was taking shape in your brain. “Where are the leaves Pietro.”

In your mind’s eye you saw them, littered across dozens and dozens of flights of stairs, blown clean off their stems and vines in Pietro’s dash. You hoped you were wrong. You knew you were not.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and promptly split. The only thing left in his wake was the box, sitting where his feet had just stood.

“You better run! You’re gonna pay for that!” you called after him.

You shook your head fondly as you examined the box’s contents. There wasn’t a disastrous amount of harm done, most of the foliage and tender new growths of the plants inside had been protected by the cardboard and remained intact. No damage that they couldn’t bounce back from. You carried the somewhat sad-looking collection of newly… pruned plants to your new room’s door and peeked inside. 

Blessedly, you were not given the same room you’d occupied years ago. That one was now informally set aside for Sam’s use when he was around. He’d offered it back to you, but you declined. A fresh start would be nice for your temporary stay here. Roughly laid out the same as Pietro’s and Wanda’s bedrooms, your room was on the smaller end of the spectrum, but smaller in a Stark building was still bigger than anywhere else. And ‘stark’ was apt; it continued his trend of spacious, minimal interiors both lavish and industrial. It would do quite nicely as a blank canvas. Best of all was its generous natural lighting.

The oversized bed was the first thing that came into view, flanked by understated built-in storage. To the right of the bed, one door led to the en-suite and another to the closet. To the left was the rest of the room, made bright and airy by the floor-to-ceiling windows that took up the entire far wall. Halfway to the windows, a couple of shallow steps down separated the sleeping area from an area better suited to work or socializing. There was a spacious desk and bookshelves you itched to fill with something other than the showy coffee table books they currently held. At the window sat a sleek pair of settees so minimal and nondescript that they must have been obscenely expensive, facing each other across a coffee table totally saturated in sunlight. With a smile, you hefted the box of traumatized plants to the coffee table so they could soak some up. Mentally, you planned. You could move the sofas back a couple of feet and add your tall plant shelves and stands. Then the light would filter into the room through leaves, all dappled and sweet. 

A knock came from the door. “Wanda!”

You hadn’t seen her since feeding her churros and making sure she knew that if Pietro died of an allergic reaction, he had done so with full knowledge of what he was eating and therefore Wanda would not be allowed to take vengeance on you. (She only agreed after trying the dipping chocolate.) 

“Welcome home, Bea,” she replied before a curious look crossed her face. “Why is Piet asking me how to _hypothetically_ make you not mad at him?”

You wordlessly lifted up a bare-branched rubber tree for her inspection, knowing she’d need no further explanation. “I’m not actually mad at him though.”

Wanda rolled her eyes. “He did the same with roses I gave him Valentine’s Day. Expensive roses. Act mad, you might as well get a favor out of it.”

“I heard that,” Pietro said from the door, head hidden behind the massive cardboard box of clothes and books he was carrying. He dropped it by the bed with a loud thump. “I’m already doing a favor just by moving boxes.”

“That was my favor to _you_ to get you out of that meeting,” you reminded him. “C’mon, you at least owe the plants an apology. Look at this poor guy.” You thrust the pot in your hands in Pietro’s direction for emphasis. “He’s bald!”

“He’s fine,” Pietro sneered, knowing full well now that you weren’t actually upset. 

“He’s miserable,” you insisted. “All the other plants are gonna laugh at him.”

Pietro huffed and slouched to lean against the wall, somehow both haughty and resigned. “Is there actual damage to the plants?”

“Maybe,” you automatically volleyed back, but your overdone innocent look was weakening your credibility. Truthfully, there was damage, but what’s done was done and most of the plants would probably survive. “Come to think of it, I’m going to be spending the weekend at my mom’s. If you watered the neediest plants while I’m gone, they’d probably forgive you.” When he made a sullen face, you coaxed, “Please? It’ll only take five minutes. I’ll even put sticky notes on the plants that need it so you don’t have to remember which ones.”

He was giving in, you could tell from his posture. The stubborn set of his shoulders had melted into something more malleable and fond at the word ‘please.’ It occurred to you that this might have been the first time you’d ever said it to him after months of knowing each other. (Which, for a pushover like you, had to be some kind of record.) 

“Fine.”

Wanda shot him an amused look from the settee where she’d been snooping through your books. For reasons beyond your understanding, her scrutiny prompted Pietro to briskly vacate the room. You hoped it was to grab another box. You were practically finished.

Wanda turned back to you. “You are visiting with your mother so soon? You haven’t yet spent a night here! Is she well?”

“No yeah, she’s fine. She’s just having trouble adjusting to this whole situation. She isn’t happy, but she isn’t trying to stop me. Staying with her every other weekend is a compromise we came up with, so hopefully that will calm her nerves.” 

“I’m glad you were able to be honest with her. I know this was not easy.”

Boxes thudded in the background as Pietro dropped them in the walk-in closet. 

“It really wasn’t,” you agreed, grateful to have a friend like Wanda. “Though it helped that I was too busy with your brother’s ridiculous demands to even worry about it that day.”

You meant it as a jab, since you could tell Pietro was eavesdropping from the closet where he was pretending it might take him more than one second to situate your clothes boxes atop one another. But in spite of your aim to insult Pietro, you spied him stifling a secretive, self-satisfied grin. His distraction with the churros couldn’t have been on purpose? No, never mind. That didn’t sound like Pietro at all.

*

Being back at your mom’s went about as expected. Mostly it was a continuation of the same discussion you’d been having for a week as your mom struggled to adjust. 

“It was the same job I’ve been doing for years.”

“It is not the same, and you know that. I know you know that because you hid it! You wouldn’t hide it if you didn’t feel guilty. You wouldn’t hide a good thing, Bea! From your mother, of all people.”

“That’s why I’m telling you now. This _is_ a good thing. Maybe I wasn’t sure before, but I’m sure now. Look, I didn’t seek any of this out or do it to hurt you. It really just…” your mind was yanked back to the Valentines Day meeting that kicked everything in motion, “… knocked into me. Fell into my lap. And I took it because we both need a push. Don’t we?”

Your mom’s eyes skittered away from yours, conflicted or resistant. “It’s a lot at once, Bea. I don’t know.”

“I was stagnating. I think you know I was. In a way, I think I was waiting for something like this to come along and shake me out of it. To push me forward into the next thing. I mean, we both kind of were, right?” 

She pursed her lips. The shock of her husband’s death had taken a toll on your mother. Time had helped both of you, but after two years you saw signs in her that the next chapter of her life was ready whenever she was. You understood, though, the subtle but tenacious guilt that cropped up at the thought of letting the mourning phase go, guilt at the thought of focusing on anything else. 

“Are you sure the way you’re going is forward?” From the outside looking in, it obviously seemed to her like you were just going back to your life before. But you knew the situation could hardly be more different, which you attempted to explain. Notably, you had precious little power for anyone to try and steal, so you (and your mother by extension) were hardly at risk.

You also made a point of reminding her about Dr. Cho and the improvements in your sleep cycle since taking the job in February. This was the angle that would eventually soften her to your side, you could tell. 

“That Stark should be flying specialists out for you anyways if he had any conscience,” was all she grumbled. Then, snorting into her wine glass, added, “Or I guess it’s his heart that’s missing.” You just took it as a win that she wasn’t actually contradicting your points. 

She was starting to come around to acceptance, slowly. By bedtime, you could hear it in some of the little lukewarm statements she began to pepper in like, “You’re going to be the one to tell Nana,” and questions about a government pension plan. 

Wishing her a good night, you went to bed the slightest bit more hopeful than before.

You woke up panting at the ceiling of your mother’s apartment, heart clenching painfully. The clock you’d left behind on your old nightstand read 3:22 AM. The last time you checked, it had been 2:00. So you’d made it less than two hours before getting pulled into a rambling vision of your parents moving you into your dorm at college. It wasn’t even remotely the way it had actually gone, the campus looked more like the university where your parents had met. But that made sense; it was your mother’s dream. She was trying to push an oversized mattress up the stairs and lost her balance. When your dad caught your mom’s shoulder before she could fall down the stairs, she leaned more weight onto the support instead of righting herself. She didn’t know why she was so desperate for the feeling. You could feel her distant confusion echo through the dream. She didn’t know why she missed it when he was right there. Right there. So real, down to the place where his broken nose never fully healed. He was right there. That was when you woke up in a cold sweat.

You threw the covers off, trying to breathe more slowly. It took a while. All was quiet. Your mother dreamed on peacefully down the hall, but you couldn’t bring yourself to try for more shuteye. It was too likely to happen again. It had already happened Friday night and you couldn’t handle any more. You clicked your bedside lamp on in defeat. The wee hours past a Saturday night were as good a time as any to plan menus. 

You gave a parting glance to your bedroom ceiling before you sat up. The sight of it was achingly, hauntingly familiar—you could draw every cranny of it from memory—and you knew then in your bones you wouldn’t stay through Sunday night like you’d planned. Sleeping in the Tower wasn’t perfect nor guaranteed unless you had Wanda’s help, but it was a far cry better than this. You hadn’t realized how perfectly awful this situation was for your mental state until you’d experienced an alternative. It wore on you just to be in the room where you’d tried and failed and suffered for so many frustrating nights in the past. You hoped your mother would understand if you left after lunch. 

*

You weren’t sure how legal it was for FRIDAY to drive the car you’d borrowed downtown while you sat in the drivers seat for show, but you were sure that it was safer than your sleepy brain operating large machinery. Besides, this way you weren’t the one who had to maneuver out of the spandex-tight parallel parking space outside your old apartment building.

Blessed quiet throughout the Tower met your return. Not a soul in sight. You slipped into your room, toed off your shoes, dropped your weekend bag in the closet, and immediately tipped over onto the couch near the window. The afternoon sun was dappled by the plants you had growing there. You tugged the soft throw blanket down from the top of the sofa and wrapped yourself in it, revelling in your total ignorance of where your phone might be. An exhale, long and slow. 

You did not sleep, but you reclined in peace, and that was a good enough Sunday afternoon in your books. Roots grew. The sun slowly pivoted its angle.

Without preamble, the door clicked open.

You peeked up from your couch lump at the noise. It wasn’t a cleaning person or some enemy of the state infiltrating Avengers Tower. It was Pietro, and he was taking uncharacteristically slow steps into your room, looking around without a word in place of his usual zipping around. From your spot on the couch, you couldn’t see his face, only his silvery hair and broad shoulders, but you had to imagine he found something interesting about your bookshelf to be in front of it for so long. At length, you noticed there was a watering can in his hand.

“Pietro?” you mumbled through sleepy lips.

He jolted lightning quick—almost quick enough to go unnoticed, but he couldn’t hide the water sloshing out the can’s spout from his spasm. It was uniquely satisfying to give him a scare for once. 

“Bea! I thought you were away,” he said, stepping nearer to the window where you could see him better. His face was flushed but his hair was also slightly sweaty; you gathered he had come from a stint in the gym. Fascinatingly, he appeared caught-out, almost guilty, as he scrambled to explain himself. “I was to water the plants in your absence, no?”

“Oh, yeah. S’prised you remembered. Yeah, no, sorry, I,” you broke to yawn, “came back early.”

“It went… not so good?” Pietro ventured cautiously.

“No, it went okay. I mean, it’s still tense, but that’s not why I left. I was having bad sleep at our—her place, so I decided not to stay the whole weekend. Living here is making me spoiled, I think my sleep deprivation tolerance is getting wimpy.”

“You do look very… out of that?”

“Out of it,” you supplied. “‘N thanks.”

“It’s not bad,” Pietro insisted, coming to sit on the end of the couch that your fetal position wasn’t covering. He moved slowly, so slowly for him, like he was approaching a skittish animal with a suspicion that he was unwelcome. You made no move to stop him. All you’d been doing before he came in was sleepily staring at your makeshift greenhouse area waiting for the clock to strike a reasonable hour to ask for Wanda’s help falling asleep. 

“It’s a different kind of sleepy for you, this kind,” Pietro was saying. “It’s not the first you have been like this. When the old man and me are sitting with you in the living room, you curled up like now talking. Almost talking in your sleep. It’s… cute.”

“Oh,” you said without meaning to. You chewed your lip. No matter how groggy you might have been, your head swam with a mixture of embarrassment about all the weird things you might have said back then and pleasure from him calling you cute. Cautiously, you peeked at him over your blanket-covered shoulder. “What’d I say?”

“You told me I was Mercury, the messenger god.” He leaned back where the back of the sofa met the arm and surprised you by not teasing you about it. Shocking restraint, considering you apparently had literally called Pietro a god. 

That was weeks ago. Why was he only bringing this up now? When you were just as loopy? “You aren’t taking ‘vantage of me being out of it ‘re you? So you can make funna me? All vulnerable and sayin’ stupid stuff.”

“Not stupid,” was all he had to say to your accusations. It wasn’t a ‘no.’ “I can leave if you want.”

You glanced heavy eyes at the ceiling considering the offer. If you were going to be awake (and you were), you might as well have company. Whatever embarrassing babbling you might have done the last time you were this loose, Pietro didn’t appear to be holding it over your head. 

Besides… part of your mind couldn’t help but remember that the last time he’d sat with you like this, that time he was talking about, you had _fallen asleep._ Blissfully and on your own. The two facts might not have been connected, but you had an addict’s brain when it came to sleep, obsessively searching out patterns and formulas where there were none. Like Pavlov’s dog with a bell, but it had only taken the one experience for your sleep deprived body to latch itself four-limbed and desperate to the tenuous correlation between Pietro and sleep.

So you shrugged and let him decide whether he’d stay or not. There were probably really good reasons to not let Pietro around you when you were honest-loopy-tired, but tragically you were too loopy-tired to recall a single one of them.

He was always so undetectable in his comings and goings that you weren’t sure which choice he’d made until his warmly accented voice came from above you. “It made me wonder which god are you. Which planet.”

“Mm, y’mean sleep? You’ve got Hypnos ‘n Morpheus and all them, but sleep doesn’t have a planet,” you trailed off as your focus drifted to the glass bottles on a nearby shelf and how prettily they caught light through the window. You still didn’t know exactly what most of the herbs were, but whatever you were growing, they were putting down roots. Time to transplant them to soil soon, probably.

“Yes?” Pietro prompted quietly, bringing you back to the forgotten conversation.

“Sleep isn’t a planet,” you yawned. “S’not a star either. Sleep’s like… the space. The dark space between them all that lets you see it.”

“See what?” Was he whispering or was the world getting quieter?

“Y’know, all the things you normally wouldn’t. The things that are far ‘n strange. Galaxies. Dreams. ‘S’stuff about the mind you can’t see till you take everything else… the present, reality, consciousness… away. Till it leaves a void. Wonder what it feels like in the void for real,” you yawned, mind straying once more from the topic at hand. “Tony’s been.”

“So you are the negative space?” Pietro shaped the words like the idea made him sad.

“No. ‘M not sleep.”

“You are about to be.” He sounded like he was grinning. You wanted to see it but your eyes were so heavy and the way your upper eyelids were caressing your lower lashline felt divine.

“This’s silly,” you said instead of casting about for an appropriate suggestion for your place in Pietro’s hypothetical pantheon. “Silly conversation. You’re weird.”

“Pot, kettle.”

“Ooooh,” you cooed, mashing your face more firmly into the throw pillow beneath it, getting comfy. “Someone’s learning idiomsss. Watch out, ‘merica. Soon you’ll be unstoppable.”

When you stretched out some to resettle into your sun-drenched curled-up bean pose, your socked toes brushed against Pietro’s thigh, exactly where it had been entire minutes ago. He hadn’t moved. Normally, you might have apologized for touching him by mistake, but in your half-awake stupor, you gave a soft laugh. “You learned to sit still, too, huh? You’re really showin’ off t’day.”

“I must impress you somehow, _somnorosule.”_ He might have been laughing at you. There was that hint of amusement sweetening his voice. Sounded like maple syrup. Mm. Your thoughts were drifting again for an indeterminate period of time when Pietro’s voice recaptured your attention. 

“How long before the leaves come back for the plants I damaged?” He was surveying the nearby plant shelves from his seat next to you on the settee. 

“Depends on the plant. The aroids should bounce back in the next month or so. But the orchid you’re looking at’ll take a year to regrow a whole new growth with leaves and all.”

Pietro’s head whipped around. “A _year?_ Are you joking? How is this fun for you? Nothing happens!”

“Things happen, it’s just delayed gratification,” you corrected him. 

“What it is is boring,” he murmured, eyeing the imperceptible progress of cuttings growing roots in glasses lined up on the shelf.

You rested you head back to watch the roots with him. “That’s probably how we look to you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Lumbering around in ultra slow motion, taking ages to do anything. We’re all big dumb plants just taking our time while you’re getting things done.” You lifted your head off the couch a bit to watch his response. “Right?”

Pietro awarded you a secretive grin. “Not all the time.”

“But sometimes,” you postulated. “Often?”

He would only shrug but seemed pleased by the questions. 

“I’ve though about this,” you rambled. “You must see everything coming from,” a yawn, “from a mile away and then you have to sit wait for the rest of us to catch up.”

“Not everything. Not all the time. Sometimes I turn it off, the world moves normally. Sometimes it’s better like that.” His words lingered in the still air.

“D’you dream in slow mo?” The question was leaving your mouth the minute it occurred to you.

You felt him resituate himself on the couch as he took in what you were asking. “No,” he said after a beat. “I dream like you.”

It made you fight the urge to snort, still snug in your half-fetal repose, eyes shut in comfort. Lucky for them, no one dreamed like you.

“You would like for me to water the plants still? I am not confident of how much to give.”

“Mm,” you agreed, unwilling to separate your newlywed upper and lower eyelids. “You go on and start without me. I’ll get up and show you in a sec.”

“Of course.”

You snuggled into the moment, the sunbeam from the window like a second, lighter blanket covering your face. “Be right there,” you slurred.

“Sure,” you heard Pietro say softly, dubiously, over the sounds of him going from pot to pot and trickling water in at a steady, unhurried pace. By the time he had watered four plants, you were fast asleep.

*

_Cauliflower pizza with meyer lemon curd mascarpone cake._

Even in the thick of one of the most chaotic workplaces in the country, routine, while scarce, could be found. There were some facts one could simply rely on, come rain, sleet, or snow: On Sunday mornings, the Pope will hold mass. On Saturday nights, Kenan Thompson’s face will be on your TV. And on Friday nights, Pietro Maximoff will have a date. Death, taxes, and Quicksilver.

Tonight was no different. Dinner had already been served—low carb cauliflower pizzas at Natasha’s request which Tony had violently protested (while eating seven slices). It was divisive, that practice of disfiguring a dish so you could eat more of it. Picking quantity over quality. Yes, the cauliflower pizza’s flavor was good, with caramelized onions and spicy capicola to round out the tomato and cheese, but was it really pizza? 

Pizza or not, there were no leftovers in the kitchen. Just you, a few pans left to scrub, and your latest cake experiment, ribboned with homemade meyer lemon curd. 

“Piet?” You could hear Wanda’s voice echo down the hallway before you could see her. 

On the second level of the living area where he and his date were chatting privately, Pietro could be seen grimacing in irritation at the interruption.

“Piet!” she called when he didn’t answer her. “We need to talk!”

A sigh sounded from the second floor. Pietro flopped his upper body over the railing in a show of petulance. “Can it wait for a time I am not entertaining a beautiful woman?” He took the briefest moment to flick his eyes past Wanda, over to where you were eavesdropping in the kitchen, and snapped a wink. The man was beyond help.

“It could if such a time existed,” Wanda snarked, heedless of the obvious fact that her brother’s current date could hear her. “We’d have to schedule it for next month!” Before Pietro could respond, she barreled forward, “Vision tells me you have not completed your testing and paperwork for next week. You have only eight days before the doctor comes!”

“I’ve been busy,” said Pietro, carelessly draped over the railing in a bored way that he managed to make comfortable-looking. His partially undone button-down gaped open at the throat

_“Dumnezeule,_ Pietro! Do you know how important this is?! Without this woman, you would be—” she broke off, apparently too angry to finish her sentence. After a deep inhale, Wanda let out a burst of Sokovian before starting again. “I can’t believe what a child you are right now!”

He rolled his eyes, long since inoculated to Wanda’s intensity.

Wanda changed tack, apparently realizing at the same time you did that she wasn’t getting through to him. From behind her, you could see her hips tilt and arms cross. “You do know that until these tests are done you are considered being unfit for the field work.”

Pietro’s pout sharpened into something scarier. “What?! I’m not injured!”

“That is for the doctor to determine, you impatient ass.” With that, Wanda spun on her heel and headed in your direction, done with the conversation.

“Hey! Come back! They cannot take me from active list! I’m stay completely healthy! This is _bullshit!”_

“Oh, go ‘entertain your beautiful woman,’” Wanda coldly quoted back to him over her shoulder. 

As Wanda sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen island, you wordlessly slid a plate of the lemon mascarpone cake across the marble. Elbows on the counter, you felt like nothing so much as an old barkeep helping to drown a regular’s sorrows.

“Can only imagine how bad it is to get him to the dentist’s,” you commiserated.

She huffed out air through her nose, fatigue and worry etched into the hollows of her generous cheekbones. She picked up the fork anyways and let herself be distracted. 

“This lemon cake… It’s…” Wanda trailed off, reduced to expressing herself with an overwhelmed facial expression.

“Thanks. It’s what I _would have made_ for Tony’s birthday if he liked my cooking enough to let me help,” you grumbled, bitter. You’d offered and then pleaded, but Tony stood firm by his decision to lock you out of the kitchen for his birthday bash and leave the catering strictly to the caterers.

Wanda brushed you off, waving a dismissive hand as though shooing a fly. “Don’t be a diva, it doesn’t suit you. He is trying to do you a favor and give you a night off. Catering such a party would be hell, even just helping.”

“Well maybe I don’t want the night off! Do I strike you as someone who thrives at parties?”

“Poor Bea,” Wanda cooed mockingly. “Invited to the party of the season, forced to drink fine champagne and endear herself to celebrities with her unassuming humor and pretty eyes. And what is this? She cannot skip town because her employer is paying for a house-call with a world-renowned doctor the same day? Tragic. Thoughts and prayers.”

You pouted for a long moment, vacillating between offended and flattered. “Are you roasting me or being crazy complimentary,” you said at last.

She glanced at you over a forkful of cake and said, as though stating the very obvious, “We are friends: I am doing both.” She paused for another bite. “When you are finished being annoying about it, I need you to tell me if a dress I have looks like something Lorde might also wear. I _refuse_ to be in another _Who Wore It Best.”_

“You’re just mad because you only got 41% of the vote,” Pietro drawled, sweeping through the kitchen and past the glass doors where the wine was kept, a pair of wine glasses nestled lazily in the spaces between his long fingers.

Wanda scowled, laying on the Sokovian accent thick and threatening when she said, “Style is subjective,” and swept out of the room. You couldn’t help grinning as you set to towel-drying the pizza pans.

A minute later when Pietro emerged with a bottle of something red, he grinned wolfishly at finding Wanda gone. “Something I said?”

Instead of darting back upstairs with the wine like you expected, Pietro set the wine and glasses on the counter for a minute and whipped out his phone. He tapped lightning fast at the screen for a second or two before glancing in your direction.

“How many inches is 185 centimeters? And how do you spell ‘anaphylaxis?’”

“You’re filling your medical forms out now?” you asked in disbelief. 

“You heard Wanda. I am benched until I complete this process. Why should I wait?”

“Um, because you’re literally in the middle of a date?”

He didn’t even look up from his phone. “Who, Mallory? She will be fine. There’s water and entertainment up there.”

“She’s a person, Pietro, not a housecat.”

He made wry eye contact with you over the phone he was still typing on. “She talks pretty much the same amount as one.”

“Y’know, one might almost start to suspect you don’t like her.”

Pietro slid a condescending look your way, almost pitying, like you were some charming bumpkin who had stumbled upon civilization. “Why would I want to date someone I like? It’s stressful. And dull—if I like them, I have to keep seeing the same person. No excitement.”

… Wow. So much to unpack in so little time.

“I will never understand you,” you uttered mostly to yourself, shaking your head. The nerve of him to act like he was the normal one. “What’s even the point, then? Why do any of it at all?”

“Because it is fun and I like attention,” Pietro stated simply, without shame. 

Well, at least he was self-aware. There was nothing to really counter that with, so you simply spelled ‘anaphylaxis’ for him and reminded him that google existed for all his measurement conversion needs. With that, he turned on his heel and zipped back over to soak up said attention from his date.

If you were looking for a brisk reminder of why getting any sort of hopes up with Pietro was a bad idea, look no further.

Not to be judgmental; he was allowed to have his reasons. Maybe his approach to ‘dating’ was that way because he just liked hooking up. You weren’t really sure what he and his dates got up to after dinner. Before the promotion, you’d always left as soon as the dishes were clean. The only way you would see how Pietro’s dates ended was if the girl walked out on him (you never hesitated to bring up that hilarious if hazy memory of the redhead leaving before entrees). Now that you lived here, you weren’t exactly keen to see exactly how or when their night would end. 

It wasn’t a problem, you told yourself. No matter your attraction or your increasing curiosity or the addictive naps you were inexplicably able to take in Pietro’s company, it was not a problem. Not to begin with and certainly not after becoming intimately acquainted with his philosophy regarding dating. To let it be a problem after that would be nigh on self-destructively stupid. With a steadying breath, you returned to cleaning up the aftermath of the dubious appeal of cauliflower pizza. 

*

_Coconut dream cakes with coffee._

You were sitting at the kitchen table and your feet didn’t touch the floor. Someone behind you was pushing your chair in, pushed it so tight to the table that it was squeezing your chest like nostalgia. You couldn’t see the woman behind you but you knew it was your mother. And then in front of you appeared something magnificent. Cakes. You couldn’t grab one fast enough. They were little cakes, like petit fours but spongier. Chocolate around the outside, not an icing but a glaze, with a coating of coconut that crunched in your teeth and crumbled onto your clothes. It was… perfect.

It was _home._

You often woke up with cravings. Like craving a food the characters in the book you’re reading are eating, it could become a compulsion. You dreamt of something and by the time woke up, you had to have it. But when the food you dreamt up did not, to your knowledge, actually exist, it could go one of two ways: heartbreak or revelation. Heartbreak happened when the craving was impossible to satisfy (one particular dream about crunchy golden cherries still had you bereft) or just inadvisable to satisfy (just because marshmallow ravioli was a groundbreaking success in your dream didn’t mean you should add Jet Puffed and flour to your grocery list; ditto with the pasta from _Elf_ ). 

But occasionally it went the second way: revelation. Every once in a while, food would come to you in a dream like a prophecy sent from the heavens. It was how you came up with your candied-bacon-lattice apple pie. Or your earl grey ice cream. Poutine burritos!—though they were only a one-time thing because you wanted to live to see forty.

Rubbing your eyes against the morning light, there was only one thing on your mind: those cakes. Checking your emails, you thought about the cakes. Brushing your teeth, you thought about the cakes. Checking your plants, you thought about their texture, their give, the chocolate. On the surface, these weren’t anything too special. Coconut, chocolate, and cake have been successfully combined before. But something about that vivid dream made it feel imperative that you have _those_ cakes and that you have them _now._ With a sigh of surrender, you gave up on your morning yoga, knowing you would have no peace until you appeased the beast in your stomach. 

Baking while testing a recipe took way longer, as a rule, but you were very efficient, not to mention motivated, and these dream cakes didn’t seem too complicated. Apron strings tied tight as a corset, hair tied back with a thin cotton kerchief, spirit fueled with strong coffee, you cracked the code in under an hour and a half. The tricky part had been getting the glaze right (you preferred a thicker ganache than the syrupy chocolate glaze in the dream), and once you’d found the right consistency, you were nearly out of sponge cake. So another batch of yellow sponge cake later, and here you were, slicing it into little cubes with a serrated knife. Then a thorough dip in the chocolate ganache (spiked with a little instant coffee), a vigorous toss with coconut flakes, and presto! Dream cakes.

Holding one of the tiny cakes in your hand was inexplicably satisfying. Biting into one, even moreso. 

“What is this…” 

Your apron fluttered as you spun around, happy to see Pietro. He of all people would appreciate your impulsive project (and likely take all the reject cakes off your hands, too). “Good morning!” you chirped and presented him with a little cake. “Want one?”

When the cake in your hand wasn’t immediately stolen, you were shocked into pausing and actually taking a good look at Pietro. What you found was not what you expected. His face was white and hollowed with shock, like he was surveying a blood-spattered battlefield and not a chocolate-spattered kitchen. 

“What’s wrong?”

It took him a moment to reach his words. “My. Our mother. She made these.” His glassy eyes flicked up to bore holes into yours. “How did you…”

You subconsciously cradled the cake in your hand to your chest protectively as you processed this. Voice uncertain, you told him, “I was just trying to recreate these cakes I had in my dream last night. I do it all the time.”

He kept squinting at the desserts and then looking again like he was refocusing his eyes, like he was convinced he couldn’t be seeing them right. For once moving at a normal speed, he reached out towards the little cake in your hand, waiting to take it until you proffered it. Face still grave, he popped it into his mouth and you could actually see his breath hitch mid-chew. He shut his mouth, clenching his jaw and blinking furiously like tears were coming. Oh no. Oh no, you hadn’t meant for this. 

God, what was wrong with you? Was there some buzzkill gene in your DNA? It was almost impressive how, without meaning to, you kept making one of the flightiest, most irreverent people in the Avengers program confront parental trauma over and over and… 

His breath came out loud and devastated. “Just the same,” he croaked. That look breaking across his face… he was thinking of bolting. Quickly, but under no illusions about being able to stop Pietro if he really meant to go, you touched your hand to his forearm

“I’m sorry if I—” 

Pietro forestalled your apology with a brisk shake of his head. He still had coconut on his fingertips and lips. 

You weren’t sure if he was telling you not to apologize or he just needed a moment in general. Watching him closely, you held your tongue and let your hand drop. You felt awful.

After a moment, Pietro cleared his throat messily. He parted his lips and started to speak only to give up again. He tried to huff out a laugh or some casual noise but didn’t quite stick the dismount. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” you said softly. At your side, your hand twitched to touch him again, to offer some comfort, but you didn’t want to overstep. “I can, um. Give you some privacy.”

Pietro was still blinking, staring blankly into middle distance. Yesterday, he’d returned from a fight with both arms basically out of their sockets without any fuss whatsoever—not even mist in his eyes. But this single little cake had undone him. Deciding to err on the side of caution, you moved to edge out of the room to leave him to his thoughts. But Pietro’s hand shot out and caught your arm before you could. 

You didn’t really know what to do. You didn’t know what he wanted from you. The only thing you could think to do was to grab a plate of mini cakes off the counter behind you and sink to sit on the floor, back pressed against the minimalist cabinet doors. So that’s what you did. It was cozier down here on the floor, tucked out of sight between the cabinets and the island; the kitchen-slash-living-area was so large and exposed. Pietro just watched, still looking a bit overwhelmed. Silently, you offered one of the cakes up to him.

Pietro’s face twisted like it wanted to smile—for once, his dark circles were worse than yours. You breathed a sigh of relief when he accepted the cake and joined you on the floor. 

Taste, smell, and memory were all closely connected, you knew. You couldn’t imagine what he was feeling right now, biting into another cake with coconut flakes raining down onto his clothes. To avoid staring at him too much, you faced forward and ate one yourself.

“God, I miss them,” he muttered, eyes wet. He wasn’t referring to the cakes. You bumped your shoulder with his and let them stay that way, content to listen if he wanted to talk. He leaned into the contact, body going palpably limp beside you. “Bea,” he rasped. “I don’t understand.”

You winced slightly, hoping he’d be able to forgive you for the invasion of his privacy once you explained.

“The _čupavci,_ did Wanda…” Pietro trailed off. 

You shook your head, eyes glued to your outstretched legs. “I see other people’s dreams sometimes. When I’m asleep.” Glancing up briefly to meet Pietro’s intent stare, you added, “Not on purpose. I never mean to. And sometimes it’s hard to tell if the dream is mine or not.”

Your hands knotted into your apron. “I thought that was one of my dreams. Last night. But it was yours, wasn’t it? I…” your voice broke a little and you placed a consolatory hand on his leg. “I never meant to intrude like that.”

When you looked over, he was wearing a sad smile. “It’s okay, Bea. I remember now, seeing something in your file about this but I did not understand what it meant. You did nothing wrong. I was only surprised. It is not like you read my file,” he added in a weak attempt at light-hearted.

You didn’t know what else to say. Belatedly, you realized your hand was still lightly resting on top of Pietro’s leg. You were both comfortable, though, so you kept it there.

“What did you call them? The cakes?”

“ _Čupavci._ My mother would tease me about them. _Čupav_ means messy, hairy, you know,” he gestured airily around his hair for your benefit, then held up one of the _čupavci._ Eyeing the tangled mess of coconut all around it, you could see how the dessert got its name. “As a boy, I ran wild. My hair always was looking like the _čupavci._ ”

Pietro caught you smiling at him and gave a scratchy laugh. “What?”

“As a boy, huh?” You knocked your shoulders together amiably. “You look like one now more than ever, with that white hair and those dark roots.”

He tried to grumble, but you could tell the teasing pleased him. Something settled in your soul watching the grin fight its way across his reluctant face. Chasing that feeling, you reached up to ruffle his windswept hair, smiled, and swiped the _čupavci_ from his fingers to pop into your mouth.

He jostled you in that longsuffering way older brothers seemed to just instinctively know from birth.

Since your dad’s death, you’d been saddened by how happy memories could be distorted into sad ones. If you got nostalgic with an old friend about how your dad always used to constantly make ‘you must be this tall to ride the rollercoaster’ jokes around you, your friend wouldn’t laugh. They would smile but look sad, and you couldn’t blame them—it was an awkward social situation—but you hated that all your happy memories with him had been turned tragic by association. That didn’t feel right. So you didn’t tell Pietro you were sorry for his loss or ask him whether he missed Sokovia. You just savored the cake.

“They’re good,” you said. 

“They were her special treat for me. Cheap to make, easy to make together. I was in charge of the coconut.” In his eyes and his lofty chin, there was a childish pride that had never grown up. It was kind of impossible to not have feelings for this man.

You sat there, both coconut-dusted and lost in the memory of the Maximoffs’ tile-floored kitchen, the feeling of being tucked tight between the sunlit table and the chair.

After a long stretch of quiet reflection, Pietro rolled his shoulders around and said, “Seeing dreams, ah? This would be strange.”

“At times it is,” you admitted freely. After a moment of silence, you gave into the urge to fidget. “Does it… does that freak you out?”

Pietro glanced at you askance, eyebrow quirked in a way that would have been quizzical if not for the lingering piece of coconut in his stubble. “You are asking if it is too weird? Makes me uncomfortable?”

“Yeah,” you replied unable to meet his eyes. It was hard not to remember all the ways dream invasion had ruined friendships in your past. 

“Bea.” He refused to continue until you looked at him. “My sister is Wanda. My thoughts have not been entirely my own for years, dreaming or awake.”

You blinked.

Still adrift in curious, unfamiliar relief, you were only able to look at Pietro dumbly as he blithely carried on. “We are supposed to have a boundary, but I know she breaks it often. She cannot stop herself. This is my life now. I am more concerned by how you are willing to poison my food.”

Distantly you realized you were now the one near tears. You couldn’t have predicted that Pietro’s easy acceptance of your oddity—not borne of ignorance but from experience and understanding—would hit you so hard. Here he was making jokes about it and you were starry-eyed, fighting to keep from throwing your arms around his neck in gratitude and just holding on. 

“You are staring,” Pietro noted hesitantly. Oh yeah, talking. Your mouth clicked open, but he was already speaking again. “You have not, ah…?” His pantsleg brushed against your knee as he shifted in place, pulling his knees up in an unconsciously defensive pose. “Is this the first of my dreams you have seen?”

“Oh! Yes, yes I think so. Unless you’re the one who dreamed about Tony’s teeth falling out last week.”

Pietro snorted, seemingly surprising himself with the noise. “Not that I remember. Though this sounds like a pleasant dream.” His posture fell lax again with a familiar sparkle of mischief gracing his eyes. 

You knew what plotting looked like. Flatly, you told him, “Don’t steal Tony’s teeth, Pietro.”

“He is no longer your boss, _printsessa._ You do not have to protect him.”

“I’m not being protective,” you corrected matter-of-factly. “It’s just that he’d immediately replace them with some perfect replica dentures that’re also bluetooth speakers or something. He’d kick you out and there wouldn’t even be satisfaction for long.”

Pietro hmphed, but didn’t contradict your assessment. “At least agree that he would be funny to see.”

You tilted your head back against a sleek cabinet door and gazed into the distance letting your imagination paint a picture. Tony Stark in black tie, making some grand, devil-may-care entrance to a gala at the Lincoln Center or the Louvre or something, holding up a champagne flute to toast and then… smiling all gummy. Laughter shook your chest. “Trying to eat a cheeseburger,” you gasped through your mirth. “Imagine him trying to eat a cheeseburger.”

Pietro’s nose crinkled boyishly when he snickered. The snickering between the two of you lasted longer than was mature. When it passed, your shoulders were pressed together more firmly. It was surprisingly comfortable.

He sighed and you couldn’t tell if it was happy or forlorn. “You should not have fed me _čupavci,_ Bea,” he said, somewhat solemn.

“Why’s that?” you asked, curious where this joke was going.

“You will be stuck with me now. And I am _always_ messy.” He stared, face still trapped someplace between playful and sincere. As if to demonstrate his point, he brushed idle fingers through the hair along his brow to dislodge some shredded coconut that had gotten there somehow. Bits of coconut landed in your lap but you were too distracted by the dimple hiding beneath his stubble to take much notice. 

Messy, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments! I really love hearing your thoughts, especially after having this story locked up in my drafts for so long. Obviously I started this before I was even aware Wandavision would be a thing, so goes without saying this won't adhere to the show or really any strict version of MCU canon. Hi to new readers, though! Let me know what you think :) 
> 
> Translations:  
>  _fără inimă_ \- heartless girl  
>  _somnorosule_ \- sleepyhead  
>  _Dumnezeule_ \- Dear god  
>  _čupavci_ \- an Eastern European sponge cake covered in chocolate and coconut  
>  _čupav_ \- shaggy / hairy


End file.
